Текст книги " The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend "

I’d never heard anything so freaking loud in my life. It sounded like a bomb was going off right next to my ear… a bomb that pulsed to the beat of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” Groggily I rolled over and picked my vibrating cell phone up off the nightstand, glancing at the time before I answered.

Five o’clock in the morning.

“Hello?” I groaned.

“Sorry to wake you up, honey,” Mom said through the speaker. “I didn’t wake Casey up too, did I?”

“Mm-mm. You’re fine. What’s up?”

“I left the house about two hours ago,” she said. “Your dad and I had a long talk, but… he didn’t handle it very well, Bianca. I knew he wouldn’t. Anyway, I’ve just been driving around since then, trying to figure out what to do next. I’ve decided to check into a hotel in Oak Hill for a few days so that I can spend more time with you, and this weekend I’m gonna start moving down to Tennessee. Your granddad needs someone to look after him. It’ll be a nice place to settle down. Don’t you think?”

“Sure,” I murmured.

“I’m sorry,” Mom said. “I should have told you all this later. Go back to sleep. Call me when you get out of school, and I’ll tell you which hotel I’m in. Maybe we can go see a movie tonight?”

“Sounds good. Bye, Mom.”

“Bye, baby.”

I put my phone back on the nightstand and stretched my arms over my head, stifling a yawn. This bed, with its cushy mattress and expensive sheets, was way too damn comfortable. I’d never had such a hard time getting up in the morning, but I managed to plant my feet on the carpet eventually.

“Where are you going?” Wesley asked in a semi-sleepy voice.

“Home.” I pulled on my jeans. “I’ve gotta take a shower and get ready for school.”

He pushed himself up on one elbow to look at me. His hair was a mess, brown curls falling into his eyes and sticking up in the back. “You can shower here,” he offered. “I might even join you if you’re lucky.”

“No, thanks.” I grabbed my jacket off the floor and slung it over my shoulders. “Will I wake your parents up if I go out the front door?”

“That would be difficult considering they’re not here.”

“They didn’t come home last night?”

“They won’t be home for a week,” Wesley said. “And God knows how long they’ll stay then. A day. Maybe two.”

Now that I thought about it, I’d never seen another car in the almost-mansion’s driveway. Wesley always seemed to be the only one here when I came over—which was pretty freaking often these days. “Where are they?”

“I don’t remember.” He shrugged and rolled onto his back again. “Business trip. Caribbean vacation. I can never keep up with them.”

“What about your sister?”

“Amy stays with our grandmother when my parents are out of town,” he said. “Which is essentially all the time.”

Slowly I moved back to the bed. “So,” I said quietly, sitting on the edge of the mattress. “Why don’t you stay there, too? I bet your sister would like having you around.”

“She might,” Wesley agreed. “My grandmother, however, is a different story. She detests me. She doesn’t approve of my”—he made air quotes—“lifestyle. Apparently I’m a disgrace to the Rush name, and my father ought to be ashamed of me.” His laugh was hollow and cold. “Because he and my mother are the staple of perfection, you know.”

“How does your grandmother know about your, uh, lifestyle?”

“She hears the gossip from her friends. Old hags hear their granddaughters swooning over me—and who can blame them?—and then they tell my grandmother all about it. She might actually like me if I’d date a girl seriously for a while, but part of me just doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I shouldn’t have to change my life to suit her or anyone else.”

“I understand what you mean.” And I did. Because I’d had that same thought a million times over the years. Recently, it had even pertained to him. It would be easy to change Wesley’s opinion of me, to hang out with different people or bring another girl into my circle of friends—like that freshman from the basketball game—to avoid being the Duff. But why should I do anything just to fix what he or anyone else thought about me? I shouldn’t have to.

And neither should he.

Somehow, though, his situation felt different. I glanced around the room, feeling stupid for even comparing it to the Duff issue. Then, without meaning to, I found myself asking, “But don’t you get lonely? In this big house by yourself.”

Oh my God. Was I actually feeling sorry for Wesley? Wesley the womanizer? Filthy-rich Wesley? Wesley the jackass? Of all the emotions I’d felt for him, sympathy had never come up. What the hell was going on?

But if there was anything I could relate to, it was family drama. So it seemed like Wesley and I had some stuff in common. Ugh.

“You forget how rarely I’m alone.” He pushed himself into a sitting position and looked at me with a smirk. It didn’t touch his eyes, though. “You aren’t the only one who finds me irresistible, Duffy. I usually have an endless flow of attractive houseguests.”

I bit my lip, not sure if I should say what was on my mind. Finally, I decided I might as well throw it out there. It wouldn’t do any harm, after all. “Listen, Wesley, this may sound weird coming from me, since I hate you and all, but you can tell me stuff if you want.” It sounded like something out of a cheesy G-rated movie. Great. “I mean, I vented all of my shit about Jake to you, so if you want to do the same,… well, I’m cool with that.”

The smirk slipped for a second. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Then he cleared his throat and added stiffly, “Didn’t you say that you needed to go home? You don’t want to be late for school.”

“Right.”

I started to stand, but his warm hand closed around my wrist. I turned around and found him looking at me. He leaned forward and pressed his lips against mine. Before I even realized what was happening, he pulled away and whispered, “Thank you, Bianca.”

“Um… no problem.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. Every other time Wesley and I had kissed, it had been a fierce, warlike make-out. A lead-in to sex. He’d never kissed me in such a gentle, greedless way, and it kind of freaked me out.

But I didn’t have time to think about it as I ran down the stairs and through the foyer. Once I was in my car, I had to speed—which I really, really hate to do—all the way to my house, and I still didn’t get there before six. That gave me only an hour and a half to shower, get dressed, and check on Dad. What a fantastic way to start the morning.

Even better was the fact that I could tell the living room lights were on when I pulled into my driveway. Not a good sign. Dad always—always— turned out every light in the house before bed. He treated it like a ritual. The fact that he’d left them on was definitely a bad omen.

I heard the snoring as soon as I tiptoed inside and instantly knew he’d bought more beer. Even before I saw the bottles on the coffee table or his unconscious form on the couch, I knew.

He’d gotten drunk enough to pass out.

I started to move forward but stopped myself. As much as I might want to, I didn’t have time to clean up Dad’s mess. I needed to go upstairs. I needed to go to school. And as I crept up to my bedroom, I told myself that he would be fine. He was just shocked, it would be fine, and this… episode would pass without incident. I could hardly hold a few drinks against the guy, considering the bombshell Mom dropped on him, could I?

I took a quick shower and blow-dried my hair (which always takes forever; seriously, maybe I should just hack all my hair off like Casey instead of wasting my time) before putting on some fresh clothes. After I brushed my teeth, I headed downstairs again and went into the kitchen to grab a Pop-Tart for the road. Then I took off, out the front door.

By the time I got to school, the student parking lot was almost full. I had to park in the very back row and jog—with my twenty-pound backpack—to the double doors. Of course that left me out of breath by the time I made it into the main hallway. God, I thought miserably as I lugged my fat ass toward Spanish, no wonder I’m the Duff. I’m so fucking out of shape it’s depressing.

Well, at least the halls were pretty much empty. That meant no one had to witness my patheticness.

“Hey, where’d you go yesterday?” Jessica asked when I slumped into my desk only seconds before the bell rang. “You weren’t at lunch or in English. Casey and I were kind of worried.”

“I left school early.”

“I thought the three of us were gonna have a Valentine’s Day thing to celebrate that we’re all single.”

“That’s kind of ironic, don’t you think?” I sighed and shook my head, trying not to look into her big, hurt eyes. God, she was good at making me feel guilty. And I knew I was going to pay for hanging up on Casey last night. “Sorry, Jessica. Something came up yesterday. I’ll tell you about it after school, okay?”

Before she could say anything, Mrs. Romali cleared her throat and shouted, “Silencio! Buenos días, amigos. Today we’re going to get started on the present progressive tense, and I’ll warn you now that it’s pretty darn difficult.”

And it was. Mrs. Romali passed out a worksheet that kept us all busy until the end of the block. By the time the bell rang, I was really starting to question my affection for Spanish class, and I wasn’t alone.

“Is it too late to switch classes for the semester?” Angela asked Jessica and me when we walked out of the classroom.

“About a month too late,” I told her.

“Damn it.”

“Bye, Bianca!” Jessica called as they ran toward their chemistry class. “See you at lunch!”

I waved and started walking down the other hallway. Today, though, I was actually looking forward to AP government. Toby Tucker had asked me to sit near him. I wouldn’t be the lonely girl in the back of the room anymore. I’d never thought that would change or that I would be so happy when it did. What can I say? The self-imposed isolation was finally beginning to bug me.

But Toby wasn’t there. His seat was completely, one hundred percent empty when I walked into the classroom (for once I was way early, the way Mr. Chaucer liked), and my heart kind of sank a little bit… or, you know, a lot. At least I didn’t have to sit alone. Jeanine practically dragged me to the front of the room, apparently lost without Toby to keep her entertained. She must have been disappointed that I wasn’t nearly as clever with political quips as her usual companion. All I could offer were a few sarcastic statements about the usefulness of the judicial system. God, I missed Toby.

So did Mr. Chaucer. He seemed to get bored with his own uninterrupted lecture, and he dismissed the class only halfheartedly when the bell rang, his lower lip sticking out like a toddler’s.

And they say teachers don’t play favorites.

I was relieved to be out of that classroom, which seemed cold without Toby’s enlightening commentaries, until I got into the cafeteria.

The lunch table wasn’t exactly a warm, loving environment that afternoon. Casey glared at me all through lunch, obviously pissed that I’d hung up on her the night before. But apparently not pissed enough to skip out on meeting Jessica and me after school to hear my excuses.

I’d promised to explain things after class. Of course, that meant the second the last bell sounded, they dragged me into an empty bathroom and started making demands like “Spill!” and “Out with it!” before I could take a single freaking breath.

I groaned and slid down the cold concrete wall to land in a sitting position on the floor. I hugged my knees loosely and said, “Okay, okay. So Mom showed up here yesterday afternoon.”

“Is she back from her trip?” Jessica asked.

“Not exactly. She just came to talk to me. She and Dad are getting a divorce.”

Jessica clapped a hand over her mouth in shock, and Casey knelt down beside me, taking my hand. “You okay, B?” she asked, abandoning her anger toward me.

“I’m fine,” I said. I knew they’d be more upset about it than I was. Casey, whose parents had gone through a long, bitter divorce, and Jessica, who could never imagine something so upsetting and unhappy.

“Is that why you skipped out on Valentine’s Day last night?” Jessica asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. I just… didn’t really feel like celebrating.”

“You should have called,” Casey said. “Or said something to me on the phone last night. I would have listened, you know.”

“I know. But really, I’m fine. It was just a matter of time. I’ve been expecting it for a while now.” I shrugged. “And, honestly, it doesn’t really bother me. I mean, you know Mom hasn’t been around much in the past few years, so it really won’t change that much. But she’s only in town a few days, which is why I need to be going right now.” I stood up.

“Where are you going?” Casey asked.

“I told Mom we’d see a movie together this afternoon.” I grabbed my backpack and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. “Sorry. I know you guys want to talk about it or whatever, but Mom’s leaving at the end of the week, so…”

“You sure you’re okay?” Casey asked skeptically.

I hesitated, my hand raised to brush some auburn waves from my face. I could have told them then. I could have told them about Dad and the beer bottles and how confused I was. They were my best friends, after all. They cared about me.

But if I ratted Dad out, what would happen? What if word spread? What would people think of him then? I couldn’t handle that. Even the thought of my best friends judging him made me uncomfortable. He was my dad, after all. And this was a small thing. He was just going through a rough patch. Nothing to worry about.

“Positive,” I said, turning away from the mirror with a forced smile. “But I should get going. I don’t want Mom to wait.”

“Have fun,” Jessica murmured, her eyes still wide with innocent shock. Maybe I should have given her the news a little more gently.

I was almost out the bathroom door when Casey called after me. “Hey, B, wait a sec.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go out this weekend,” she said. “To make up for not hanging out on Valentine’s Day. We could all go to the Nest. A Girls’ Night Out. It’ll be fun. We’ll even buy you ice cream.”

“Sure. I’ll call you later, but I really have to go.”

With a wave, I ran out of the bathroom. Yeah, I did want to see a movie with Mom, but that wasn’t the reason for my hurry. There was something else I had to do first.

Once I made it to my car, I wasted no time in pulling out my cell phone. I dialed the familiar number and waited for the professional male voice to answer.

“You’ve reached Tech Plus. This is Ricky. How may I assist you?”

I wanted to talk to Dad. To make sure he was okay and let him know we’d get through this. Just, you know, be supportive. I knew he needed it. After the night he’d had, I knew he must be having a horrible day at work. Besides, if I was dealing with the news so well, I could at least help pull him through it. “Good afternoon, Ricky,” I said. “Is Mike Piper available?”

“I’m afraid not. Mr. Piper didn’t come in today.”

I sat there, stunned for a minute, knowing what that meant. But I shook off the worries creeping into my stomach. He was just having a bad hangover after a rough night. Probably more than enough to remind him why he’d quit drinking in the first place. He’d be fine tomorrow.

I hoped.

“Thank you, anyway,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

I hung up the phone and started to dial another number. This time a woman with a clear, chirpy voice answered.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Mom.” I forced myself to sound at least semi-upbeat. If I was too happy, she’d know something was up. After all, I just wasn’t the peppy type. “Still want to go see a movie tonight?”

“Oh, hi, Bianca!” Mom exclaimed. “Yeah, that sounds great. Listen, honey, have you talked to your dad today? Is he okay? He just got so upset last night, and he was crying when I left.” By the way she spoke, I could tell she had no idea he’d relapsed, that he’d touched a bottle. If she did, her voice would have been much more strained, full of concern. Maybe even on the verge of panic. But she sounded calm. Only slightly worried. The fact that she was so blind really bothered me. I mean, he’d quit drinking almost eighteen years ago, but still. The thought should have crossed her mind.

But I didn’t want to be the one to break the news to her.

“He’s fine. I just got off the phone with him a second ago. He’s going to be at work late tonight, so a movie works great for me.”

“Oh, okay. I’m glad to hear that,” Mom said. “What do you want to see? I don’t even know what’s in theaters right now.”

“Me neither, but I was thinking a comedy would be good.”

16

Dad wasn’t better the next day.

Or the day after that.

He went back to work at the end of the week, but I was sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed the hangovers he took with him. It seemed like there was always beer or whiskey lying around the house now. He was always passed out on the couch or locked in his room. And he never mentioned it to me. As if I didn’t notice. Was I supposed to ignore it? Pretend this wasn’t a problem?

I wanted to say something. I wanted to tell him to stop. To tell him he was making a huge mistake. But how? How does a seventeen-year-old convince her father that she knows what’s best? If I tried to stop him, he might get defensive. He might think I’d abandoned him, too. He might get angry with me.

Since Dad had stopped drinking before I was born, I didn’t really know much about the whole sobriety process. I knew that he’d had a sponsor once. Some tall, balding man from Oak Hill that Mom had always sent Christmas cards to when I was a kid. Dad didn’t talk about him anymore, and I was sure that, even if I tried, I wouldn’t have been able to locate his number. If I had, what would I say? How did that whole sponsor thing even work?

I felt powerless and useless and, more than anything, ashamed. I knew that, with Mom gone, it was my job to do something. I just didn’t have a clue what that something was.

So in the weeks after Mom left for Tennessee, I spent most of my time at home avoiding Dad. I’d never really seen him drunk in my life, so I didn’t know what to expect. All I had to go on were the little bits of conversations I’d overheard as a kid. He’d been an angry person once. He had a temper. I couldn’t imagine this coming from my father, but I didn’t want to start anytime soon. So I stayed in my bedroom, and he stayed in his.

I just kept telling myself it would pass. In the meantime, I’d keep his little secret to myself. Lucky for me, Mom was gullible enough to believe me whenever I told her everything was fine over the phone, despite my less than awesome acting abilities.

Honestly, I thought hiding my secrets from Casey would be the hardest. She could always see right through me, after all. I tried avoiding her at first, ignoring her phone calls and making up excuses when she asked me to hang out. I never called her about that Girls’ Night Out she’d suggested in the bathroom. I was sure she’d bombard me with questions the second she got me alone, so I always tried to use poor clueless Jessica as a buffer. But within a week, I got this strange feeling that Casey was steering clear of me.

She called less and less.

She stopped asking if I wanted to go to the Nest on weekends.

She even switched seats with Jeanine at lunch, putting herself all the way across the table—as far away from me as possible. Once or twice, I even caught her giving me dirty looks.

I wanted to know what the hell her problem was, but I was scared to confront her. I knew that if we actually talked about it, I wouldn’t be able to keep lying about Dad. Not to her. But it was his secret, his shame, not mine to tell. I wouldn’t let anyone, not even Casey, find out.

So I had to let her supreme weirdness slide for the time.

Wesley was really the only thing getting me through those weeks. Some part of me was appalled at myself, but what could I say? I needed that escape—that high—more than ever, and he was always just a short drive away. A fix three or four times a week was all it took to keep me sane.

God, I was like a fucking druggie. Maybe my sanity was long gone already.

“What would you do without me?” he asked one night. We were tangled in the silky sheets of his gigantic bed. My heart was still pounding as I came down from the high of what we’d just done, and he wasn’t helping matters by putting his lips so close to my ear.

“Live a happy… happy life,” I murmured. “I might even… be an optimist… if you weren’t around.”

“Liar.” He bit my earlobe playfully. “You’d be absolutely miserable. Admit it, Duffy. I’m the wind beneath your wings.”

I bit my lip, but I still couldn’t hold back the laughter—and just as I was finally catching my breath, too. “You just referenced Bette Midler… in bed. I’m starting to question your sexuality, Wesley.”

Wesley looked at me with a defiant glint in his eye. “Oh, really?” He grinned before moving his mouth back to my ear and whispering, “We both know that my manhood has never been in question…. I think you’re just changing the subject because you know it’s true. I’m the light of your life.”

“You…” I struggled for words as Wesley pressed his mouth into the crook of my neck. The tip of his tongue moved down to my shoulder and made my brain get all fuzzy. How was I supposed to argue under these conditions? “You wish. I’m just using you, remember?”

His laughter was muffled against my skin. “That’s amusing,” he said, his lips still grazing my collarbone. “Because I’m pretty sure your ex is out of town by now.” One of his hands slid between my knees. “Yet you’re still here, aren’t you?” His fingers began gliding up and down my inner thigh, making it difficult for me to think of a retort. He seemed to like this, because he laughed again. “I don’t think you hate me, Duffy. I think you like me a lot.”

I squirmed uncontrollably as Wesley’s fingertips danced along the inside of my leg. I wanted so badly to argue, but he was sending electric currents up my spine.

Finally, when I thought I might explode, his hand moved to my hip and he pulled his mouth away from my shoulder. “Oh, thank God,” I whispered as he reached for a condom in the nightstand drawer, knowing what came next.

“I suppose it’s a good thing I don’t mind having you around,” he said with that cocky grin. “Now, let me answer all of those questions you claim to have about my sexuality.”

And my head filled with clouds again.

But I couldn’t deny things were getting way out of hand. It became painfully clear to me one Friday afternoon in English that something wasn’t right.

Mrs. Perkins was passing out old papers she’d graded and chattering away about some Nora Roberts book she’d just finished—totally unaware that no one was listening to her—when she stopped at my desk. She gave me this big, goofy smile, like the smile of a proud grandmother. “Your essay was wonderful,” she whispered to me. “Such an interesting take on Hester. You and Mr. Rush are an excellent team.” Then she handed me a tan folder and patted my shoulder.

I opened the folder as she walked away, a little confused about what she’d said. Inside was a paper that I instantly recognized. Hester’s Escape: An Analysis by Bianca Piper and Wesley Rush. In the top-left corner, Mrs. Perkins had scribbled our grade in bright red ink. A ninety-eight. An A.

I couldn’t help but beam at the paper. Had it really been only a month and a half since we’d written this in Wesley’s bedroom? Since the first time we’d slept together? It felt like decades had passed. Millennia even. I looked across the room at him, and my smile vanished.

He was talking to Louisa Farr. No, not just talking. Talking just involves the vibration of vocal cords, and there was way more than that going on. His hand was on her knee. Her cheeks were getting red. He was giving her his cute, cocky grin.

No! Repulsive grin. Since when did I think that display of arrogance was cute? And what was this weird twinge I felt in my stomach?

I looked away as Louisa started to play with her necklace, a definite sign of flirting.

Whore.

I shook myself, surprised and a little worried. What was wrong with me? Louisa Farr wasn’t a whore. Sure, she was a preppy cheerleader—cocaptain of the Skinny Squad—but Casey had never had bad things to say about her. The girl was just talking with a cute guy. We’d all done the same. And it wasn’t as if Wesley was taken or anything. It wasn’t like he was committed to anyone.

Like me…

Oh God! I thought, realizing what that twinge in my gut must mean. Oh God, I’m jealous. I’m seriously fucking jealous! Oh, shit!

I decided I was sick. I had a fever or PMS or something was severely impairing my mental stability, because there was no way in hell I’d be jealous that a man-whore like Wesley was hitting on someone else. I mean, that was his nature. The world might have actually stopped spinning if Wesley didn’t flirt with poor, naive girls. Why should I be jealous? That was ridiculous. So I must be sick. I had to be.

“Are you okay, Bianca?” Jessica asked. She swiveled around in her desk to look at me. “You look p.o.’ed. Are you mad or something?”

“I’m fine.” But my words came out through gritted teeth.

“Okay,” Jessica said. She was just as gullible as my mom. “Listen, Bianca, I really think you should talk to Casey. She’s kind of upset, and I think you two really need to have a heart-to-heart. Maybe today? After class?”

“Yeah… whatever.” But I wasn’t listening. I was too busy coming up with ways to mutilate Louisa’s perfect little face.

PMS. This was definitely just a bad case of PMS.

I got my ass out of that classroom the second the bell rang. My head would explode if I had to hear Louisa’s girly, oh-I’m-so-happy-you’re-flirting-with-me-Wesley giggle one more fucking time. So what if she was as thin as my pinkie and had boobs the size of basketballs! I bet she had an IQ of twenty-seven.

Stop it, I told myself. Louisa has never done anything to me. I have no right to think those things about her… even if she might be a moron.

I threw my stuff into my locker and ran toward the cafeteria, eager to escape the school building. I was so focused on not thinking about my PMS-induced jealousy that I didn’t even see Toby until I skidded to a stop about six inches from him.

“In a hurry?” he asked me.

“Sort of,” I sighed. “Sorry for almost running into you.”

“It’s not a problem.” He nervously played with his glasses. “But do you think you’d mind slowing down the pace? I’d like to talk to you.”

I wasn’t all that surprised. Toby and I had kind of gotten to be friends over the past couple weeks. We mostly talked in AP government, but you know, that was a definite improvement. Actually, I’d even become somewhat comfortable around him. While my heart still fluttered a little when he walked into the room, I no longer worried about losing my voice.

“Sure.” I said. At least it would give me something else to think about for a few minutes.

He smiled and fell into step with me. “Can you keep a secret?” he asked as we reached the cafeteria, where the student body congregated, waiting for the final bell that would dismiss them for the afternoon.

“Most of the time. Why?”

“Do you remember when I missed school a few weeks ago? The day after Valentine’s Day?”

“Uh-huh. I believe that was the worst day of Mr. Chaucer’s life,” I said. “I thought the guy was going to cry when he realized no one was there to do most of his job for him.”

Toby laughed—but only a small laugh—and said, “I was skipping school… well, for an interview.” He pulled a large envelope from the inside of his blazer and whispered, “I applied to Harvard. I just got my letter in the mail this morning.”

“Why is that a secret?”

His cheeks went pink in the cutest possible way. “I don’t want to be humiliated if I don’t get in,” he said.

“You’ll get in.”

“I don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“I wish I had as much confidence in me as you do.”

“Oh, come on, Toby,” I said seriously. “All great politicians—like senators and presidents—go to awesome colleges. You’re going to be a great politician, so they have to let you in. Besides, you’re one of the smartest kids in the senior class. You’re valedictorian, aren’t you?”

“I am,” Toby agreed, frowning at his envelope. “But… but it’s Harvard.”

“And you’re Toby.” I shrugged. “Even if you didn’t get in, there are a million other schools that would kill to have you. That doesn’t matter, though, because I know you got in. Do yourself a favor and open the letter.”

Toby stopped in the middle of the cafeteria and smiled at me. “See,” he said, “this is why I wanted you to be the one with me when I open it. I knew you’d be—”

I cut him off. “While I’m sure the next few words out of your mouth are going to be incredibly sweet, I’m one hundred percent aware that you’re stalling. Open the letter, Toby. Even a rejection is better than putting yourself through this hell. You’ll feel better if you just read it.”

“I know. I—”

“Now.”

He ripped open the envelope, and I realized just how odd this was. He was coming to me with this very personal thing. For support. For encouragement. Back in January, I never would have imagined commanding Toby Tucker to open his acceptance letter. I never would have imagined speaking to him, period.

My, oh my, how things can change.

In the best ways possible, of course.

He slid the paper from the torn envelope with shaking fingers and began to read. I watched his eyes scan the page and widen. Was that joy or heartbreak? Shock, maybe? Surprise that he got in or surprise that he hadn’t?

“Well?”

“I… I was accepted.” Toby dropped the paper and let it float gracefully to the floor. “Bianca, I got in!” He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into him, wrapping his arms around me.

That was something else I never would have expected to happen back in January.

“I told you that you would,” I said, returning the hug.

Over his shoulder, I spotted Casey and Jessica walking across the cafeteria. They were looking at me as they moved through the crowd of students; they saw me wrapped in Toby’s arms. But for some reason the expressions on their faces didn’t mirror the happiness I felt. Jessica looked kind of sad, but Casey… well, she looked downright furious.