I fell in love with Kev and she took him away from me,” Jaz says, her voice low and strained with raw pain.
I’m so stunned, my jaw is dropped.
“But you can’t move now because of…”
“A broken heart?” Jaz murmurs. “You have one too, Mia. This shouldn’t be hard to understand.”
Silence falls over us in the car and I turn around in my seat. Woodenly, I grab my compact mirror so I can check my make-up but I’m not really seeing anything.
Do I really have a broken heart?
“She’s coming. Act normal,” Jaz whisper yells. “We’re not telling her about any of this.”
“Remember, Mia,” Rye whispers. “Everyone knows that she wants Shane Matthews because you want him. She’s going to destroy you. That’s her plan. Be careful.”
“Okay, I just checked,” Kristine gasps with excitement, her voice breathless like she ran all the way here.
I watch her skeptically as she literally dives head first into the passenger seat, her cheeks flushed—I’m betting it has nothing to do with the fact that she ran here after being gone for over twenty minutes just to check on how packed tonight’s party is.
“Took you long enough.” I side-eye her, noticing the smudge of her lipstick.
“Well, I had to make a pit-stop,” she gasps, trying to catch her breath.
“Was that on your knees?” Rye counters from the backseat and I smile, staring at my reflection through the compact mirror.
“That’s none of your business, Rye,” Kristine says, “At least I had the guts to actually go in and check.”
“Among other things.” Rye mumbles and I laugh, unable to hold it in.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Rye smiles at her. “What did you see?”
“Well get ready, bitches, it’s packed like a den of sin in there,” Kristine gushes excitedly, her voice out of breath. “It looks like a neutral party.”
“That means public schools and private school students are here, right?” Jaz questions from the backseat, making Rye and Kristine sigh loudly.
“Oh sweetie, that’s what I meant, it’s a neutral party,” Kristine mocks, a fake smile plastered on her face. “Which means, it’s going to be steamy as hell, with an all you can eat buffet of guys just waiting. Ripe for the picking.”
“Ripe for your abuse,” Rye murmurs and I chuckle.
“What?” Kristine snaps, turning around to stare at her. “Do you have a problem with me?”
“A problem with you?” Rye starts, tilting her head to the left like she’s confused. “That would assume I actually consider you as anything more than a little…”
“Rye,” I cut her off before she can go on.
“No, let her get it off her chest.” Kristine huffs.
“Now is not the time.” I sigh. “Tonight’s about partying. School starts on Monday.”
“As well as whoring,” Rye chimes in again, her eyes narrowed on Kristine.
“What did you just say?”
“Here we go again,” Jaz grumbles.
“Nothing, sweetie.” Rye smiles because that’s what you do in high school when you’re a mean girl. You keep your enemies close and the girls who steal your boyfriend from under your nose even closer.
“Whatever, you can be sour all you want but tonight, I’m going to let loose!” Kristine screams in my ear, making me almost jump in my seat. I push her face away, shooting her an evil eye.
“When are you ever not loose?” I scowl at her, making Jaz and Rye laugh all over again. “And stop screaming in my ear, you sound like a fox in distress.”
“Seriously?” Kristine gasps, staring at my profile with her eyebrows almost touching her hairline. I’m almost impressed by how much give her face muscles still have. Sixteen years old and already she’s had work done. “Seriously, Mia?”
“What?” I shake my head, then snap my compact mirror closed so I can fluff out my hair. “I didn’t say anything that isn’t true, and you know it.”
Some people should just own up to how they became overnight whores since discovering sex like an overeager, sex-crazed machine. For Kristine, that was when she turned thirteen. But sleeping with Rye and Jaz’s boyfriends like that, it sounds personal.
“I’m not loose!” Kristine frowns, making Jaz snort.
“Yeah sure,” she starts. “That’s why you’ve been dating three guys at a time for the past two weeks?”
Whoa, say what?
“You’ve been dating three guys at the same time?” I question. “And you’ve only known them for two weeks?”
Kristine turns haughty right then, eyeing me like she knows something I don’t.
“Yeah, impressive isn’t it?” She drops her voice to a mocking moan. “Feeling jealous?”
I don’t know why she thinks I’d consider her moral torn, identity crisis, another-man-snatching tendencies impressive.