How to Date the Guy You Hate by Julie Kriss Page 0,8

scrambled up and limped away, moving gingerly, still gasping. He didn’t say a word. I watched him go as the red cleared from my vision, replaced by a Zen, angry calm.

Then I remembered Megan.

I turned and looked behind me, but there was no one there. Megan had already gone.

Four

Megan

I worked the opening shift at Drug-Rite the next day, and when I got home I found a bag of groceries placed in front of my apartment door, with a note taped on the bag: Are you eating?? —Dad. I sighed and brought it inside with me. Even though I’d only moved a block away, my dad still had a hard time letting go of me.

It was a nice gesture, but this was Dad. He could barely feed himself, let alone me, ever since Mom died. So in the grocery bag I found raisin bread, a jar of mayonnaise, and kale chips. How these things were supposed to go together was anyone’s guess. This was how Dad’s brain worked.

Maybe it seems screwed up, moving out only to go a block from home, but it worked for me. My mother died of breast cancer when I was sixteen, leaving me and Dad alone. It was the worst thing you could possibly imagine—first watching her get sick, then watching her go, then trying to get over the damage. If you can ever really get over the damage, which we couldn’t.

Dad had always been a free spirit—just like Mom—but after she died, he checked out. He could remember which herbal tincture was supposed to cure insomnia, but he couldn’t remember to get his car back or pay his bills. I had to move out because he was driving me crazy, but I couldn’t go far. He was all I had, and life had taught me that you never knew how long you’d have the people you loved before they were gone.

And me? After emerging from high school like a zombie, I’d just flitted from job to job and uncommitted boyfriend to uncommitted boyfriend. The idea of anything long-term—whether it was a job, a college curriculum, or a guy—made me feel queasy, a reaction I very purposefully hadn’t examined very closely or very often.

Maybe that made me weird. Actually, it did make me weird, at least among people my age. They were all flying away from their families, running as far and as fast as they could. They were building college educations and future careers. A few were traveling. They were getting into relationships, getting married, and some of them were even having babies already. I couldn’t even commit to a TV show for longer than three episodes—and those were the shows I liked.

I put the groceries on the counter and went through my thin stack of mail. A bill. Something from the bank that I didn’t even open. Something from the credit card company. Ugh. I did not feel like adulting right now.

I opened the kitchen drawer I’d reserved for unopened mail—it was disturbingly full—and dropped the envelopes in. Then I caught sight of one of the envelopes near the bottom, a silver one stamped with elaborate gold writing, and I paused.

Stephanie’s wedding invitation.

I felt my chest squeeze. Stephanie was my cousin, and her wedding was on Cape Cod in two weeks. I’d already said I’d go. With a plus-one.

Fuck. I slammed the drawer shut. I’d forgotten the date was so close. I did not want to go to that wedding. I picked up my phone and texted Holly, my best friend: You free for a coffee at Hennessey’s?

Hennessey’s was the coffee shop Holly had worked at until she quit a month ago. She had a business buying old vintage dresses, making them over with her incredibly creative sewing skills, and selling them online through the website I’d made for her. The business was doing so well that she’d moved in with Dean, quit Hennessey’s, and made dresses full time. But we still went to Hennessey’s for coffee for old times’ sake.

While I waited for an answer, the phone rang in my hand. I didn’t recognize the number, but no one ever called me, so I answered it anyway.

“Is this Miss Megan Perry?”

“Yes,” I said, hoping it wasn’t the bank people or the credit card people. I really should open my mail one of these days.

“This is Dr. Pfeiffer’s office.”

Everything stopped. My feet felt like cold cement. My stomach felt worse.

“Yes,” I said, trying to sound normal, like someone who was talking on the phone