The Backup Girlfriend (Grove Valley High #2) - Emma Doherty Page 0,79

and her dad and must have known how to edit because you see everything. He’s walking toward her and she doesn’t notice at first, she’s just talking to her friend, and then suddenly she looks up and she’s so shocked for just a second. Then she’s out of her seat and running toward him, and she just launches herself at him, bursting into tears at seeing him.”

I blink rapidly, trying to control my emotions. Even thinking about it is starting to make me feel emotional.

Brett’s eyes are glued to me, but this time he’s not smiling; his face has turned altogether more serious.

“And you want to know what the best part is? It’s not the kids clapping around them or her mom joining them for the hug.” I have to blink harder because I’m dangerously close to tears now. “No, the best part is that her dad, this huge big soldier who has probably seen all kinds of atrocities all over the world, is crying too…crying his eyes out as he hugs his daughter who he hasn’t seen in so long.”

I bite down on my lip as I remember that video and the hundred of times I must have watched it.

“I mean isn’t that incredible?” I ask Brett. “Can you even imagine a dad loving his daughter so much he’d sob in public just because he’s been reunited with her?”

Brett just stares back at me.

“Can you actually imagine that happening? A world where a dad loves his daughter that much?”

A shadow crosses over Brett’s face as he still doesn’t say anything, and then I see it.

Sympathy. Pity.

I’ve gone too far.

I’ve revealed too much about myself. I basically just told him my dad would never do that for me.

“Abigail—”

“Let’s get back to the work,” I interrupt. “I think you’ve let me distract you for long enough.”

“Abigail—”

“Seriously, Brett. You can tell your friends I get emotional over cheesy reunion videos and I’m not the wicked witch they all think I am.”

“That’s not what I was going to say. If you—”

“Don’t. Please don’t. Whatever you’re going to say, I don’t want to hear it.”

He stares at me for a couple of seconds as he watches me, and I hold my breath. If he asks me to confide in him, if he asks what my relationship with my dad is like and why I love those particular videos so much, I’m not sure I’ll be able to not tell him.

Eventually he nods and reaches for his textbook. “Okay, page 257.”

25

I barely slept last night. All I could think about was Brett’s face and the pity he felt for me.

I hate the thought of him pitying me.

We’re not scheduled for a study session this morning so I know he won’t be at school early, but I pull into the parking lot early anyway, sitting in my car, waiting for him to arrive so I can talk to him right away.

There’s a rap on my car window as I wait, and I turn to see Aaron and Chase standing outside my door. I force a smile at them, expecting them to move on, but instead they stand there at the front of my car. It takes me a second to figure out that they’re waiting for me, and I know it will be too weird if I wave them off and just remain sitting silently in my car.

“Are you feeling alright?” Chase asks the second I join them.

“Huh?” Surely I don’t look that bad. I know I’m stressing, but still.

“You’re here early.” He smirks.

I roll my eyes at his attempt at humor as Aaron snickers at me. “What gives?”

“I’m here early all the time now.”

“Yeah, when you’re studying, not when you’re just sitting in your car.”

I stare back at Chase. This is something that once upon a time I could have confided in him about. I would only have to say what happened last night and he would understand in an instant and get why I’m stressing out. Aaron probably knows enough about me to understand it too, but looking at them both now, I find that I don’t want to rely on Chase and speak to him about my feelings. If I’m going to talk to anyone about what happened last night, it’s going to Brett…and even then it’ll only be to smooth things over.

Chase seems to realize I’m not about to share anything and starts walking toward school, dumping his bag onto one of the wooden picnic tables outside and sitting down. Aaron and