Kissing the Shy Guy - Stephanie Street Page 0,10

asleep.

“Yes.” I shook her shoulder softly. “Pizza and popcorn while we watch a movie. How about that?” Melly went to Lakeview as a freshman. I hardly saw her during the day, and only my close friends knew she was my sister. I never ignored her or denied our relationship. It just rarely came up.

“I like pizza.” She hadn’t opened her eyes, but lifted her head, smiling.

I brushed her brown hair, just like mine, away from her broad forehead. “I know you do.” Melly loved girl’s night.

“Can we watch Little Women?” she asked, perking up a bit.

“My favorite.” I stood and gently pulled on her arm. “But first, you have to help me get the pizza ready.”

“And root beer?” Melly finally stood up, her loose body leaning heavily against mine. She was still groggy, but it was better groggy now than wired at one in the morning.

“We can’t have pizza without root beer!”

“It would be a travesty,” Melly said, repeating one of my favorite phrases, making me laugh when I didn’t want to. The door closed downstairs. Mom’s car started in the driveway. I loved my sister and would do anything for her, but I wasn’t her mother.

“That’s right.” A lot of things could go wrong in my life, but Melly would always be something right.

“How come you’re sad, Jenny?” Melly asked an hour and a half later. She always called me Jenny.

We’d devoured most of the frozen pizza I’d baked in the oven and drank our root beers. A bowl of popcorn sat between us on the sofa, and we each had water to chase the sugar from the soda.

“Who says I’m sad?” I hadn’t told Melly anything about Josh quitting, and there was no explaining about my frustration with Mom. I’d tried to put on a cheerful face for her sake, but Melly had a sixth sense about these things. She’d always been in tune with my emotions and was often the only person I could talk to.

Melly turned her shoulders, facing me. Her wide green eyes studied me from behind her glasses. “This says you’re sad,” she said, wiping her hand over my face.

“Melly!” I laughed, catching her hand. Melly laughed, too. “Just watch the movie.”

Melly laid her head on my shoulder, once again facing the television, but her attention still focused on me. “Why does your face look sad, Jenny?”

I sighed and gave in. “Something happened at school today.”

Melly picked up her head and stared at the side of my face until I glanced at her. “What happened at school today?” she whispered. Melly loved secrets, and anything whispered must be a secret.

I debated telling her. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it, and talking about it sounded like too much work. But Melly waited. I couldn’t leave her hanging.

“Josh broke up with me.”

Melly gasped, and the sound was so gratifying. I didn’t realize how much I needed someone else to acknowledge just how messed up the whole thing really was. Adam had, but that was different. He was different. He didn’t know me or care about me.

“Jenny, I’m so sorry.” Melly hugged me tight, the familiar feel of her unconditional love wrapping all around me.

“That’s not all. You remember the scholarship?” I asked as she kept hugging me.

Melly pulled back, a look of dread marring her expression. “In New York?” she whispered again.

“That’s right. In New York. And I’ve been working on it with Josh.”

Melly nodded again. “Yes. You’ve been gone a lot working on your song.”

She didn’t mean to make me feel guilty, but I had been gone, leaving her at home alone with Mom and Dad, who didn’t like to watch her shows.

“I know. I’m sorry I haven’t been here.”

“It’s okay, Jenny. But why does it make you sad to work on your song?”

“It doesn’t. Working on my song makes me happy. But now that Josh isn’t my boyfriend anymore, he doesn’t want to work on the song with me, and now I might not sing it in New York.”

Melly gasped. “But why? You’ve been working so hard.”

I shrugged. Melly, for all her difficulties, knew a lot, but her understanding of what motivated people to do the things they did was limited. She would understand that Josh broke up with me, but she wouldn’t understand why that meant he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, work with me on the scholarship competition. To her, I could very well have hung the moon. And for her, I would. But not everyone was Melly. Not everyone loved