the way to let me pass. They go on driving.
Oblivious.
When I get home, the lights are off in the living room and kitchen, and I climb the stairs to hear my parents arguing behind their closed bedroom door.
Oblivious.
When I drag myself down the hallway, I pass Hadley’s open door and hear the familiar dialogue from The Breakfast Club. Surprise, surprise. Why does she watch the same movies over and over again?
She, too, is oblivious.
Oblivious to my heartache. Oblivious to the end of everything.
Sure, I could tell Hadley. I could stand in the middle of this hallway and shout at the top of my lungs, My life is over! My heart is crushed! My world will never be the same!
But what’s the point? Of anything, really.
They won’t understand. My parents will spout some nonsense about how it’s only high school and I have my whole life ahead of me to fall in love again.
Blah blah blah.
And my sister will try to cheer me up by plagiarizing some line from a teen movie. As if every adolescent problem has already been solved by John Hughes.
I take another step toward my room, causing the floorboards to creak. Hadley looks up from the glow of her TV screen. “Hey!” she says brightly. She must not be able to see the smudge of tears and mascara on my face because I’m cast in shadow. “Wanna watch? I can start it over from the beginning.”
I shake my head and mumble, “No.”
Then I retreat to my bedroom and shut the door softly, before collapsing on my bed in a fit of quiet sobs and deafening grief.
I have every intention of staying in here for the rest of my days. Or until I shrivel up and die. There’s no way I can go back to school. There’s no way I can show my face in this town ever again. Not after what happened tonight. Not after what everyone witnessed at that carnival.
I’ll never survive it. I’ll never be able to see Tristan without bursting into tears. And how long will it take before he moves on? How long will it take before one of those hundreds of adoring girls sinks her teeth into him? How long did it take him to move on from Colby to me?
Less than a week.
The idea of seeing Tristan with another girl—kissing another girl in the hallway the way he used to kiss me—it’s too much. My stomach feels like it’s going to eat itself just thinking about it.
How could he do this to us? How could he throw us away so quickly? I don’t understand. Nothing he said made any sense. We’re broken? We can’t be fixed? Those are cop-out lines if I ever heard one. Why didn’t I push him for a real reason? Why didn’t I speak up and demand an explanation?
Is this because of our fight last night? Because I threw a garden gnome at his head? He can’t break up with me for that! It’s not fair. He has to give us—give me—another shot.
I hear a tapping at my window and nearly let out a startled scream. Then my heart catapults into my throat. It’s him. It’s Tristan! He’s changed his mind. He’s driven all the way over here to tell me that he’s made a huge mistake. He’s climbed up the tree outside my window just like they do in the movies to confess his love for me. It’s wildly romantic! And so Tristan!
I brush the tears from my face, leap off the bed, and scurry to the window. I thrust it open and my heart sinks back into my chest.
It’s Owen.
Of course it’s Owen.
He’s been climbing that tree in our front yard since we were nine. He’s been entering and exiting through my bedroom window for as long as we’ve been friends.
“Hi,” I mumble, and step away from the window to allow Owen to tumble inside. He never manages to enter gracefully. It’s always more of an awkward face-plant than anything. You would think after all this time he’d learn how to squeeze through the window without nearly killing himself.
I plop back down on the bed with my face buried between pillows. I can feel Owen’s weight shift the mattress as he sits.
“I suppose I don’t have to guess why you left the carnival in tears,” he says.
“You mean, you haven’t heard?” I murmur into the pillows before propping myself onto my elbows. “I thought they’d announce it over the carnival loudspeaker.”
He winces. “That bad?”
“I just