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“Are you okay?” Mia asked as she and Nicole rushed down the front steps to meet me.
“What happened?” Nicole added with a worried glance past me to where Jeremy still stood in the parking lot. A crowd of people had already gathered around him, and I could see some girls trying to console him by tenderly rubbing his arms. That hadn’t taken long. His head was hung low, and he looked truly devastated. Surely, he wasn’t that upset. If I didn’t hate him quite so much, I might have been impressed by what a good actor he was.
Mia’s gentle touch on my arm brought me back to reality, and I turned my eyes to her. “I’ll feel much better once he’s out of my sight,” I said.
“It didn’t go well, did it?” Mia’s voice was low and understanding.
“No.” I let out a heavy sigh. “I confronted him about Saturday night, and he lied and tried to talk his way out of it. If I hadn’t already wanted to break up with him, I think that conversation alone would have put me over the edge.”
“So, it’s over?” Mia confirmed.
“Yeah, it’s over. Although, he wanted to stay together.” I shook my head. “What kind of guy cheats on you and still wants to be your boyfriend? It doesn’t make any sense.”
“The kind of guy that’s used to getting what he wants,” Nicole replied.
“And he obviously wanted the best of both worlds,” Mia added, her tone laced with disgust. “Such a selfish jerk.”
“Yeah,” I agreed before wrapping my arms around myself as a sudden chill ran through me. I felt like such a fool for falling for his charms. For giving him a chance when I should have known better. Breaking up with Jeremy was painful, but it was the knowledge I’d brought this on myself that was the hardest part to bear. How could I be shocked and upset when he was just doing what jocks did? It was like getting mad at a cat for chasing a mouse. It was in his nature to cheat, and I’d just been stupid enough to think he could be any different.
I was surprised when Nicole wrapped an arm over my shoulders. She wasn’t the most affectionate person, and yet she didn’t seem the least bit reluctant as she went to guide me up the steps to the school entrance.
“I know it’s hard, but it’s going to get better,” she said.
“I hope so,” I replied. “Because I am done with dating, and I will be one hundred percent sticking to my no-jock rule from now on. No exceptions.”
The two girls shared a concerned look.
“You can’t just give up on dating,” Mia said. “Not because of Jeremy.”
“Sure, I can.” I had no interest in risking my heart with another boy any time soon. Dating Jeremy had been a mistake, and I should have run from him the moment he’d shown me his hockey skates. Like my mom, I’d learned that lesson the hard way. And, as painful as it was, I was determined to make sure I never made the same mistake again.
Thankfully, I managed to avoid Jeremy for the rest of the school day. We had different classes, which helped, but I also steered clear of the cafeteria at lunch. I knew I would have seen him there, and while I briefly considered marching in with my head held high, Nicole offered me an escape route, which I was more than willing to take.
She insisted she couldn’t possibly eat lunch with the masses today because she needed to keep a low profile after her exploits on Saturday night. She had emptied the pockets of every boy stupid enough to face her in a poker game at the party, and she claimed she needed to avoid her disgruntled opponents at all costs. Nicole was not someone who got nervous about confrontation, so I knew she was doing it for me, and I was grateful.
It was surprising how quickly word of my breakup with Jeremy spread through the school. People were whispering about it in my classes after lunch. And before the day was done, I even heard a couple of girls gushing over the fact they might have a chance with Jeremy now he was single. I was almost tempted to tell them their chances weren’t any different because he didn’t appear to believe in exclusivity.
When the bell finally rang at the end of the day, I hurried to the teacher’s parking lot to find Luke. He was giving me a ride to the garage to check on my car. And after the day I’d had, I was really hoping Reed’s dad was going to give me some good news.
I jumped up and down to keep myself warm as I waited by the car for my uncle. I probably shouldn’t have rushed outside, because Luke was always slow to finish his day, but I’d desperately wanted to get out of school and away from prying eyes and gossiping mouths. But, the longer I stood out in the cold, the more I regretted that decision. I was never going to get used to the winters here.
Just when I was considering retreating back inside, the lights on the car flashed, and I heard the familiar clicking sound of the vehicle unlocking. I turned to find Mia walking toward me with the car keys in her hand.
“Where’s Luke?” I asked.
“He got called into an urgent meeting,” she replied. “He told me he was going to have to stay late so we should take the car home. Want to drive?” She tossed the keys at me before I had a chance to respond, and I only just managed to catch them.
“Uh, sure,” I said, but then I shook my head. “Wait, he wants us to go straight home? What about Betty?”
“He said to tell you he’d take you to the garage in the morning.”
“He wants me to wait another night to check on Betty?”
Mia shrugged. “Well, he can’t go with you tonight, and I think he wants to be there to make sure she’s not being held in a mafia hideout.”
I rubbed my forehead. I might have only spent a short time with Reed’s dad, but I felt pretty confident Danny Darling’s garage wasn’t a front for organized crime. At the very least, I would have expected Reed to be driving a much nicer car if his dad was some mobster like Luke had heard.
“How are you after today?” Mia asked.
