She's So Dead to Us

“Come on, David. I’m over this dance,” I said, taking his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

Confused, David followed me toward the door nonetheless. Jake, much to my surprise, came after us.

“Wait.” His hand was on my arm. I turned around. “Look, I’m . . . I’m sorry, okay?” he said quietly. “We shouldn’t have done it. But it’s not like it was my idea—”

“No? Then whose was it? Tell me so I can ask them for the cash,” I said.

Jake looked away again, his handsome face turning a deeper shade of red.

“Fine. I’ll expect the money in the morning.”

I twisted around on my heel and walked off, David, A

“Are we really leaving?” David asked. “Should I get the coats?”

“Yeah. I mean, if it’s okay with you guys,” I said. “This is lame anyway, right? I say we hit the diner.”

“I’m all over that,” Logan said. He smacked David in the chest with the back of his meaty hand. “Let’s go.”

The two of them loped off toward the lobby, where the makeshift coat rack had been placed. I kept moving for the door, wanting to put as much space between me and Jake as possible.

“Okay. That was weird,” A

“What?” I asked, both fuming and exulting. I’d finally gotten to tell him off, but somehow, I was still pissed.

“In all the months I’ve been documenting Jake’s every move, I’ve never seen him (a) go after a girl who’s walking away from him or (b) apologize for anything.”

I paused with my hand on the metal door. “Really?”

“Really,” she said, whipping the notebook open to jot something down. “Clearly you’ve had some kind of positive effect on Jake Graydon.”

I swallowed hard and looked across the room at him. He was rejoining his friends and his date, as if nothing had happened. Apparently it wasn’t a huge effect.

“Here you go, milady,” David said, holding out my mom’s black wool coat to me.

“Thank you.” I slipped my bare arms into the warm sleeves. “Let’s go. I’m starved,” Logan said, shoving open the door and barreling through it ahead of A

“Um . . . shall we?” David said, tilting his head.

“Yeah,” I replied. My stomach was clenching and unclenching as I remembered what we’d been talking about before we were so rudely interrupted. Jake was clearly a jerk, and David was clearly his polar opposite. Maybe the key to breaking the Jakesession was to replace it with something else. Something real. Someone who actually cared about me.

“Hey, David,” I said.

His eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”

“The answer to your question is yes,” I said.

His grin lit the entire room. He took a sliding, sideways step toward me. “Yeah?”

I gri

David slipped one arm around my back. “Cool.”

Then he leaned in and kissed me, his lips warm and soft, his eyelashes tickling my cheek. When he pulled away, I smiled. There may not have been fireworks, but it was nice. Part of me had to wonder if Jake had seen that, too, but I forced myself not to look over at him. From now on, I only had eyes for David Drake. I was a Norm, I was going to date a Norm, and I was going to forget all about the lame-ass Cresties and their evil pranks.

“Come on,” David said, taking my hand. “Let’s catch up with them before Logan eats his dad’s car.”

I laughed as he held the door open for me and I slipped out into the cool night. At that moment, there was no doubt in my mind that I had just made the right decision.

ally

Twenty-three down . . . formerly trendy berry. Formerly trendy berry ending with an i. What kind of berry ended with an i? Why could I not get this?

“Done!”

A

“You are not done.” I lifted my head. My neck hurt from straining over Ultimate Crosswords for the past half hour. A

“What’s twenty-three down?” I whined.

She looked over her board. “Acai! That’s the easiest one.”

“I suck at this,” I said, throwing my pencil down. Why had I even spent a dollar ninety-nine (minus discount) of my hard-earned money on that crappy book if she was going to beat me every time we challenged? I checked my watch and sighed. Ten minutes and I would be able to clock out. “Why is this place so dead?”

“Football game,” A

The Apothecary was an old-school pharmacy and makeup outlet on the Crestie side of town. I used to accompany my mother there once a week to pick up “essentials” like La Mer skin cream, Estée Lauder eye gel, and cooling pedicure socks shipped in from Italy. None of which could be afforded now. I wondered what my former friends would think if they saw the current state of my mom’s makeup bag. These days it was Avon and Olay all the way.

“Right. Norms play football, Cresties play soccer,” I said, rolling my eyes. I walked around the counter and joined her, eyeing the candy selection. “Speaking of Cresties, you’ll never believe what happened this morning.”

“Wait!” A

I casually picked up a tube of Mentos and put it down. “When I went outside for my morning bike ride, the lawn jockey was gone.”

“Really?” she said, in a leading way that made my heart pound. She bent and scribbled vehemently in her book.

“What’re you writing?” I asked, standing on my toes to try to see. She shielded the page with her hand like a little kid who didn’t want her test paper copied.

“Just that maybe Jake Graydon is human after all,” she said.

I blushed and looked away, setting about reorganizing the battery carousel, which did not need reorganizing. I had figured it was him. Of course it was him. But it was nice to have someone else confirm the suspicion.

“So, you and David,” A

My stomach flipped, and I swallowed back a wave of unpleasantness. “Why?” I asked, lifting a shoulder. When I turned around, I looked her right in the eye, but it took some effort. “I like David. He’s sweet.” I paused, searching for the right thing to say. “David is . . . good for me, you know? I think it’s go

Was I trying to convince her or me?

“Uh-huh,” she said skeptically, shoving her pencil and notebook back in her bag. She extracted a dollar and rang up her peanut butter cups. “Just remember that when you’re breaking his heart in a few weeks.”

“A

“We’ll see.”

Before I could protest further, the door chime sounded and my mom walked in. She looked beautiful. Her hair was done up all fancy, and she was wearing more makeup than I’d seen her wear in months. Her eyes and her smile were both bright—genuine. Not forced or strained or tired. It was a nice change, even if I wasn’t so psyched about the reason behind it.