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jake
“You got arrested!?”
Sha
“Who let you in?” I asked.
It sounded more pissed than I intended. But then, I was pissed. I hadn’t talked to any of my friends since the night of the going away party. Hammond had called twice. Sha
She lifted her head and blew her bangs out of her face. She’d gotten tan in Florida. “Like anyone lets me in. Your door is always unlocked.”
She was right, of course. Sha
I went back to my game, leaning against the foot of my bed.
“What’s the matter? Are you pissed at me or something?” she asked. She came to the end of the bed, swinging her legs around so they were next to my right cheek.
“Why would I be mad? You almost got me thrown in jail, but no, I’m not mad.”
“Oh, come on. Like it’s somehow my fault.” She shoved my shoulder. I ignored her and kept playing. “What were you thinking? Why did you have to go all Batman on us?”
“Batman?”
She slid down to sit on the floor next to me and rolled her eyes. “You know . . . ru
“I wouldn’t’ve had to if you guys hadn’t pulled that stupid-ass prank,” I replied. I paused the game again and flung the controller down. “What were you thinking?”
Sha
“Fu
“But you weren’t supposed to be there!” she said, leaning back on her hands.
“That’s not the point. Why did you do that to Ally? I thought you guys were, like, getting along at basketball and stuff. Did you really want her to get in that much trouble?” I asked.
“Whatever. I heard they dismissed the charges,” she said, looking at the TV.
I pushed myself to my feet and stood over her, so angry that I had to move to keep from exploding. “They did, but you didn’t know that was going to happen. Why would you do that to her?”
“Okay, first of all? It wasn’t my idea, it was Faith’s,” she said, shoving herself to her feet as well. “And second of all, why do you care so effing much what happens to Ally Ryan?”
“I . . . I don’t,” I said. “I just . . . I don’t get what she did that was so fucking awful that you guys need to keep screwing with her. What’s the point?”
Sha
“What? Just tell me. What the hell is going on?” I asked.
Sha
My stomach turned, and bile rose up in my throat. Ally and Hammond? Hammond had fooled around with Ally?
“What does that mean, exactly, ‘fooled around’?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I never asked for the details,” she spat. “Does it matter? The girl’s a backstabbing whore.”
My knees were too weak to stand. I couldn’t believe that Hammond had been with Ally. A million flesh-heavy visuals shot through my mind rapid-fire, and I closed my eyes. Hammond and Ally. Hammond and Ally. I was starting to sweat.
“Does Chloe know?” I asked, because it seemed like the right thing to ask.
“No. I’ve never told her. No one knows that I know.”
“Not even Ally?” I asked.
She looked me in the eye. “Not even Ally.” She blew out a sigh and turned away. “The thing is, I think Hammond still likes her,” Sha
“Hammond? No, he—” But then, the day after I met her hadn’t he grilled me about how she looked? Hadn’t he been the one telling me to stay away from her all along? He’d told the Idiot Twins to shut up about her at Sunday di
“He always liked her. Since, like, fourth grade. And Chloe always liked him. It was like our very own Degrassi-style love triangle,” Sha
“So you think that all this time, Hammond never stopped liking Ally?” I said.
“I don’t know. I mean, I know he cares about Chloe, but . . .” She paused and shook her head. “All I know for sure is, we ca
I swallowed back the bile in my throat. I couldn’t say what I was thinking. Because she would kill me. The thing was, I didn’t think it was that big a deal that Hammond and Ally had hooked up. Everyone hooked up behind their boyfriend’s or girlfriend’s back. It happened all the time. It wasn’t the cheating or the so-called backstabbing that threw me.
It was that Hammond had kissed Ally Ryan. And maybe more. I liked a girl who’d been with one of my best friends. He’d gotten to her first. I took a breath and clenched my jaw.
“So . . . you’re not in trouble, right? I mean, with the police?” Sha
“No.” I leaned forward with my elbows on my thighs. “But Principal Lawrence gave us two weeks’ janitor duty.”
“Janitor duty?”
“Yeah.”
I felt a thrill in my heart area every time I thought about it. Me and Ally alone together every morning for two weeks. But then . . . Hammond and Ally. Ugh. Why did she have to tell me this?
“Oh my God! That’s classic! Do you have to wear the coveralls and everything? I’m so filming this for YouTube,” Sha
“No. I don’t know.”
“So, just tell me the truth,” she said, standing in front of me. “There’s nothing between you and Ally Ryan?”
I looked up at her. She was my best friend, but I couldn’t tell her. Because there was nothing to tell. And clearly, even if there was something to tell, that something would totally piss her off.
“No. There’s nothing between me and Ally Ryan,” I confirmed.
“Good,” she said, her expression serious. “Because you deserve better.”
Whatever that meant. “Thanks.”
I switched the TV to one of the movie cha
“So . . . how was Florida?” I asked as she sat down next to me again.
“It was all right. Waterskiing, lying out, a lot of drunken reminiscing, but luckily everyone managed not to mention Charlie,” she said, fiddling with her hair now. “My dad was actually pretty cool. On Christmas he even smiled.”