I bit my lip. “I don’t think so, guys. He’s just protective of me—like a big brother. He doesn’t like me getting picked on. But let’s face it—he’s skittish of me. Worried I’m going to turn all obsessed with him again. Do I need to remind you of middle school?”
Even they had noticed Smith turn the other way whenever he saw me coming back then.
“Yeah but that was years ago,” Sara pointed out.
“Right, but he only started noticing me again because of—well, of a bunch of embarrassing things,” I tell them, not wanting to list them all—or any. Since they are all embarrassing and have me turning red just thinking about them.
“Well, he comes to your rescue a really lot,” Sara pointed out. “—I mean, for a guy that you claim is trying to avoid you.”
Then she added, “He saved your life, Mandy … and then he saved you again this morning in the sweetest, nicest way.”
“It’s so romantic.” Nicole dreamily sighed again. “It sounds just like Matt. That is so something he would do.”
Man, she had it bad for the guy.
“Guess you’re going to ‘Show Your Love’ with him, huh?” I said with a smile.
She nodded, “Definitely. It’s expensive, but so worth it.”
My heart twisted a little. For the past two years I’d gone to the fancy event with Grady. I always told him it was too expensive, but he would always say that—that it was worth it. “I want the picture of us,” he always told me, kissing me all soft and lingering.
The thought makes me wistful. Which sucks. I don’t want to be wistful over Grady anymore. I want to feel the way I’d told smith in my text this morning—that Grady ‘bugs’ me … which he does. He bugs me big time by liking another girl. It also bugs me that I can’t just snap my fingers and be over him. I mean, I want to be over him. So bad. I feel dissed, and betrayed by him. So why can’t I just be over him?
“I wonder if Grady is going with Becca?” I murmured gloomily.
We all three looked across the crowded cafeteria to him. He’s been involved with some big project for his computer class, and that’s who he was sitting with now—the people on his team, intent on whatever they were working on.
“He keeps staring at you—then looking away,” Nicole informed me.
Sara raised her eyebrows. “Maybe he’s longing to get back together with you, now that Sexy Smith is in the picture.”
Though hearing Grady’s been staring at me sends a zing of (lame) hope swirling through me, I roll my eyes. “He knows Smith isn’t really ‘in the picture.’ Becca swears up and down I’m paying Smith for his attention.”
“Geez, what a witch,” Sara said. “Why on earth does Grady like her?”
I shrugged dismally. “Look at her. She’s curvy and beautiful—like a centerfold model.”
I added dryly, “Some guys go for that.”
Sara grunted. “Well, I thought Grady was better than that—above the going for lust stuff.”
I grimaced. “Me too, but, alas—sigh—apparently not.”
I added grimily, “And now she’s a cheerleader.”
“And yet Grady keeps looking at you,” Nicole pointed out.
“Well, probably because I barfed in the trashcan during Chemistry class, and apparently I’m paying a guy to act like he likes me—stuff like that baffles him.”
I couldn’t help frowning. “I’ve noticed at school I can’t even talk to him without Becca huffing her way in, like I’m trying to steal her guy. I mean, I can’t even talk to him.”
“Well, I know someone that will talk to you,” Nicole said with a grin, gesturing my head towards Smith who was eating with the hockey players and cheerleaders. But he glanced up towards me immediately when I looked his way.
“Ha! It’s like he has radar set to you or something,” Sara said. “His eyes snapped to you the second you peeked at him.”
A slow lazy grin spread on Smith’s lips when he caught me watching him. What the—?? I quickly looked away, my cheeks turning bright red.
“He loves to tease me!” I groaned, palming my flaming cheeks.
“Look at Grady now,” Nicole whispered. “He saw that—Smith smiling at you. It made him wince.”
We all turned to look at Grady. He had a perplexed frown on his face and he looked kind of ashen and pale. When we all looked his way, his eyes went straight to mine and he gave me a long questioning stare. I saw him swallow hard, then he quickly looked away—and he wouldn’t look at me again.
I snuck a quick peek back at Smith—to see if he noticed. Yep. He was watching with interest, but when he caught me peeking at him he raised eyebrows at me, then quickly texted, “I knew he’d cry if he saw me into you.”
Then he added, “—didn’t you?”
With a strange stirring in the pit of my stomach, I had to admit I did. I knew Grady would be hurt if he thought I was into Smith again—especially if it seemed Smith was into me too; and we might actually get together.
For some reason, that made me feel torn. Like, I didn’t want to hurt Grady … but in a way I did.
… And actually, it felt kind of nice (satisfying) that I could. I knew it was petty. But I never claimed to be mature.
Besides, the dude had hurt me. Over and over. I know he didn’t do it on purpose (that’s why I didn’t jump up and rush over to Smith and actually pay him to keep acting like he was into me). But just because Grady didn’t do it on purpose didn’t make it alright with me. Didn’t make me feel less betrayed.
Well, okay, it did some, of course.
But not much.
Smith’s eyes stayed on me, watching me closely.
Holy smokes! The guy’s stare had me on fire. What was he doing? Trying to have me publish a whole new book about him? Was he insane? Sadistic? Masochistic?—all the above?
I darted my eyes away from him and shot up from my seat like a spaz. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I announced to my friends—like we do that or something. Announce when we’re going to the bathroom.
Then I darted away to splash cold water on my face.
But when I opened the bathroom door, I froze. Actually, died a little. Well, my heart did. It stopped beating.
My breath strangled in my throat. All I could do was stare at the bathroom mirror in horror. Because there was a huge message scrawled across it in blood-red lipstick. A message to me. It said: Watch your back, Mandy. You suddenly think you’re something. (But you aren’t. You’re so NOTHING that it’s sad.) You can’t have Smith!! You think you won him? Ha! You’re so toast.
Staring at the message, I sputtered out a gasp. I collapsed against the wall, feeling as though I’d been punched in the stomach. I mean it. All of the air whooshed out of me and I couldn’t breathe.
The ironic thing was though, I didn’t even know for sure who wrote the stupid message. Becca or Chloe? They were both just that evil.
It was creepy.
And scary.
CHAPTER 68
“Definitely, Chloe,” both Sara and Nicole agreed when I told them about the message on the bathroom mirror. “That girl is psycho when she feels she loses—and come on, Smith was her property as far as she was concerned. Even if she cheated on him, she can’t take another girl having him. Especially the very next day after they broke up.”
Nicole laughed. “It wasn’t even a day! Smith grabbed on to you the second he was free.”
I drew out an exasperated breath. “It was just for show. Everyone knows that. Becca even knows it, and she wasn’t even there.”
Nicole shrugged with a smile. “Doesn’t matter. Chloe was totally showed up. She can’t handle that.”
“Yeah,” Sara agreed, “She’s psycho.”
I shuddered.
Great.
I had one psycho cheerleader leaving me nasty messages on our school’s social pages, and the other leaving them on the bathroom mirrors.
What fun.
(Not.)
CHAPTER 69
W
hen I got home from school, there was something on my doorstep. I stared at it from a distance for a long time, my heart pounding.
Sometimes Grady leaves me goofy surprises on my doorstep. Well, okay, he used to. Things like songs about girls with freckles—stuff like that. (Because I have freckles … and I hate them. Grady knows that; that I hate my freckles. So he started randomly leaving me songs on my doorstep that mentioned girls with freckles. Any song he heard with it—folk songs, rock songs, country songs—didn’t matter. It just needed a girl with freckles. He said, “See, guys write songs about girls with freckles.” It had made my heart pound with love. And made me start to love my freckles. And love Grady even more.)
So, my heart got a little excited now thinking maybe it was another gift from Grady. Though, of course, he hadn’t left me one since we broke up. But I started to think: ‘Well, maybe all that stuff with Smith today got to him. Maybe he actually got jealous and started thinking of me like he used to.’
Okay, I knew the thought wasn’t very likely. After all, he was all tangled up with Barbie Becca now. Deeply tangled. But still, remembering his eyes on me today—it was possible. Possible enough that my heart started pounding and I scrambled up to my porch to see what the heck was on my doorstep.
When I got there, my heart stopped pounding. Instead, it fell like a rock. And a violent tremor crashed through me. What was on my doorstep?
A piece of toast.
Chapter 70
Yeah, a piece of toast—to go with Chloe/Becca’s bathroom threat. You know the one—that I was “toast.”
Yay.
What a fun day.
Positively joyous.
All afternoon I kept getting phone messages from a blocked number. The messages involved the same kind of words “anonymously” texted to me in school all day, but now they also involved a lot of screaming and threats that if I kept up my ‘act’ with Smith, I’d regret it.
I clenched my fists, so tired of this psycho war—and the strange psycho threats—that if I didn’t keep away from Smith I’d regret.
I clenched my teeth—along with my fists.
“You know what I really regret?” I yelled into the phone the next time she called. “I regret that you’re too big of a chicken to stand here in front of my face and tell me this garbage.”
After that, every time she called I just made chicken “bock-bock” noises over her screaming. Yeah, really mature. I know.
But wow. I’d never dealt with a nut-case before. It was turning me into one. Fast.
So, when the doorbell rang, I froze. Suddenly, thoughts of Psycho Chloe coming to make good on her psycho threats crashed through my brain.
Holy smokes! Maybe I shouldn’t have told her to tell me her scary threats to my face. Suddenly, that seemed like a bad idea. And suddenly, I wished someone was home with me (mommy!!!) And that we had a dog. A big one. Named Killer.
“Settle down Killer,” I gushed out loudly anyway. “That’s a good boy. What a BIG doggie you are, KILLER,” I said super, insanely loud as I searched through our foyer closet for a baseball bat.
Then I peeked out the window.
Whoosh! A sigh of relief escaped me.
In fact, my heart went all fluttery.
‘Cause Grady was at the door. Grady!!!
Fireworks burst through my body.
We didn’t have plans, he didn’t tell me he was coming. He was just here—at my front door, ringing my doorbell. Grady!!!
It was pretty weird, because usually we hung out at his house—and usually it involved texting beforehand. And actually it hadn’t happened in weeks, since, you know, he was now dating a psycho witch that wouldn’t let him even talk to me, and I was pretty much (okay, totally) avoiding him. So, yeah, this was weird—him showing up at my house, and not even texting first.
My heart was beating all crazy. But it always did that now whenever he was around—because it was suddenly an aching experience having him around. So, finding him unexpectedly at my doorstep, it had my heart slamming against my chest. Really hard.
I threw the baseball bat to the side and wiped my curiously sweaty palms on my skirt before opening the door.
Grady raised his eyebrows. The first thing out of his mouth was, “You’re really going to ‘Show Your Love’ with Smith?”
He asked it as soon as I opened the door. He didn’t even wait for me to greet him or anything. He just blurted it out as soon as he saw my face.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m really going to ‘Show Your Love’ with Smith.”
I said it like, Why the heck wouldn’t I? Because, well, really he didn’t have a right to look so skeptical. I mean, Hello, we were broken up, and he was dating someone else, and besides, he’d heard Smith say we were going together.
Okay, so I didn’t really know if we were actually really, truly going together. But Grady had no right to wonder about it. He had been told we were. It hurt that he couldn’t just believe it. I mean, was it really so hard to believe I would date another guy? I mean, seriously. He was dating. Why was it so unlikely that I was?
Okay, okay there was the Todd factor. (Stupid Todd.)
But geesh! He’d heard Smith say we were going. So … why the skepticism? Why couldn’t he just think, ‘Oh, wow. That’s kind of painful—Smith of all guys. Smith!!’
Also, it would be nice if he thought as well, ‘Gee, I wish I’d held on to Mandy while I had the chance. Why oh why did I let stupid, psycho Becca Wallace and her evil cheerleader lips come between me and Mandy? Why, why, why cruel world? Why??’
But, sadly, I doubted he was thinking that. Still, I was more than a little shocked to see him here. I mean, Becca had updated the school’s social page saying she had “big plans” with her “boyfriend” for the rest of the week. I had no idea what their “big plans” were, but I was pretty sure they didn’t involve dropping by my house unannounced (and looking all bewildered and upset).
Grady ran a hand over his face, seeming uncomfortable about what he wanted to say. “It’s just—people are saying you paid Smith to say you were going with him.”
Heat swamped my cheeks. He really believed that? Ouch. “I’m not paying him anything. Not one cent.” Then I added, “Actually, I’m kind of offended that you would even think that.”
Grady lowered his brow. “I didn’t really think that—not exactly.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I just didn’t know what to think. I mean, I just start to think, ‘Okay, I guess what she’s saying is true—I guess she really doesn’t want me around anymore’—then I’d find you in my bed or you faint or I hear over the intercom that you made out with the class treasurer to get me jealous.”
He raised his eyebrows, “So, you can see how I’m confused. I mean, yesterday you were hurt that Becca kissed me, then today—out of nowhere—I hear you have a new boyfriend. And at first it’s supposedly Matt Roberts—who obviously loves your best friend, Nicole. But then, right after that, it’s not Matt, it’s Smith—Smith—who’s telling me he’s the answer to your prayers and—”
“Sounds like you’re jealous of Smith,” I muttered—absurdly—just trying to interrupt his unending list of my craziness and the impossibilities of my new fake relationship.
Couldn’t he maybe, perhaps be jealous instead of skeptical? Was that really too much to ask?
Sigh.
Apparently it was.
His eyebrows rose, “Mandy, he was dating Chloe yesterday.”
I groaned. “Well, we bonded last night. He took me out to pizza and we—”
Grady’s lips parted slightly. For a moment he didn’t say anything, then murmured softly, “You went on a date with Smith?”
He seemed a little hurt by that. Or maybe just taken aback.
Heat swamped my face from his frown. I nodded, feeling a lump growing in my throat.
This is what a break up is like. It hurts and it’s awful. Welcome to reality, Grady.
Grady stared into my eyes, long and searching.
Then he tilted his head, squinting his eyes a little, like he was trying to piece the charade together. “Is that why he was saying he was the answer to your prayers this morning? You showed him your book?”
I shook my head. “He saw it. A long time ago.” (Apparently.)
“Yet he’s quoting from it now?”
I shrugged. I really didn’t know what to say about that. I was as clueless about it as he was. Yet, he seemed hurt that I’d show Smith the book.
Well, he had no right to be hurt. None at all.
“Look, you shouldn’t get tangled up with Smith,” Grady said after a long moment of silence.
I glared at him incredulously. “Why?”
“Because you’re going to get hurt, Mandy.”
He flicks his jaw muscles a moment, staring into my eyes. “He’s used to girls like Chloe, Mandy. Girls that aren’t like you. You’re all soft and kind—he’ll rip you apart.”
I choke out, “You don’t even know him.”
“I know he dated Chloe. I know he did it a long time—longer than anyone else. And before her, all the girls were like her.”
I bit my lip, “Well, maybe he’s ready for something different.”
“Look, I’m not worried about him. I’m worried about you. I know how you feel about the guy. How you’ve always felt about the guy. He’s going to hurt you, and it’s going to kill me.”
This incredible ache sliced through me.
“Well, you hurt me—and that killed me.”
He stared into my eyes. “That killed me too.”
I had to shove away tears. I didn’t want to do it in front of him.
“Grady,” I choked out quickly, “I have to go now—bye.”
I slipped into my house, hearing his quiet, “’bye Mandy.”
He sounded like his heart was breaking.
Chapter 71
After my heart-wrenching confrontation with Grady, I was in a funk. As usual.
I tried to get him completely out of my brain though, as I set up for this fundraiser at our school—a bake-sale that I somehow got roped into because Sara needed me to take her place for some reason.
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