two years.”
“Don’t count on it,” I muttered under my breath.
“Look, Elliott can have female friends. He can even be friends with you, if you’ll let him. Spend some time with him and I’m sure you’ll like him as much as I do.”
I pressed my lips together, gritting my teeth. Molly didn’t know that Elliott and I had been friends once. I’d made it my mission to ensure she never found out what happened four years ago.
She was basically the only friend I had, the one person I trusted outside of my dad and brother. We’d formed a connection when she spotted a sticker for this mostly unknown band called Hallow Flux on my notebook and gushed about how she had all of their songs on her iPod. Ever since then, Molly and I had been a team against the rest of the world.
I was supposed to be happy for her for having a new love interest, at least according to the unspoken rule of best friends. But the girl had a new love interest every other month. Before New Year’s she had been devoted to the president of the technology club. Before that she was into a goth phase and dated Brian Kelley, who wore black lipstick. (I could always tell when they’d been making out under the stairwell because his lipstick would be smudged all over her chin.) How much breaking up could one person possibly take? She was going to get dumped and then I’d have to eat cartons of full fat strawberry cheesecake ice cream with her again and I was supposed to be thrilled?
“With your predisposed hatred of Elliott, you blow any little thing he does out of proportion,” Molly told me.
My mouth dropped open. “Out of proportion? What else could he and Tara have been doing? Alone?”
“Discussing homework? Sports? The economy? Something totally unrelated to any of the scenarios you’re dreaming up?”
Poor naive Molly. Always wanting to believe the best in people. She hadn’t yet learned how cruel the world could be.
“Elliott is not entirely the bad guy you’re making him out to be,” Molly said, popping another piece of popcorn into her mouth.
Oh, yes, he was. But of course, I couldn’t bring that summer up as my reason for hating Elliott for the rest of eternity. So I had to rely on other wrongs he’d done.
“What about when he tripped me in gym class?
Molly raised one eyebrow. “You’re not taking gym this year. How could he have tripped you?
I flailed my arms. “In eighth grade! He tripped me in front of the boys’ and girls’ classes.”
“Tell me you are not bringing up something that happened three years ago.”
“My knee was bruised for two weeks,” I said.
“Okay,” Molly said slowly, a mischievous gleam in her eye, “since we’re talking about ancient history, what about the egg incident?”
I stuffed a handful of popcorn into my mouth all at once to save me from responding. I couldn’t believe Elliott had told her about the egg incident.
“Do I need to jog your memory?” Molly asked. “Third grade field day. Egg in a spoon race. You cracked your egg over Elliott’s head when he beat you.”
I swallowed the soggy lump of popcorn and said, “I do not recall such an incident.”
She tilted her head to one side, letting her pink and blonde bangs fall in front of one eye. “Sure, you don’t. Elliott told me all about it.”
“That was a long time ago,” I grumbled.
“So were all of the things you like to bring up in your case against Elliott.”
“His cheating on Lila was only two years ago. How do you know he won’t do it again?”
Molly frowned as she picked through the bowl for the cheesiest kernels. “I don’t. But you know what? I’d like to have the chance to find out for myself.”
Corrie, Molly’s mom, padded into the room in snowflake pajamas and Christmas tree slippers, even though Christmas had passed almost five months ago. “Oh, Sean Connery again?” she asked, leaning over the back of the couch to grab some popcorn. “I’ll take some of that, shaken not stirred, any day.”
Molly cringed. “Gross, Mom. Go have your middle-aged fantasies somewhere not within my hearing.”
Molly’s mom wasn’t old, as far as parents went, and she looked younger than she was, with long blonde hair and blue eyes like Molly’s. She hated it when I called her Mrs. Pinski, since she and Molly’s dad had been divorced for over ten years now.
“Corrie,” I said, taking advantage of having