Page 43 of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts

27 min 13 sec

Jo: Hello, hello, and welcome back to the fourth season of Seven Rules for Breaking Hearts. Today, we’re going to be talking about the long-coveted idea of the girl and boy next door. Right, Go?

Go: That’s right. The girl next door has become almost synonymous with “relationship material.”

Jo: The girl next door is sweet.

Go: Approachable. Dependable.

Jo: But the boy next door is a bad idea.

Go: That’s the whole point of Rule Number Six. You want to pick guys who are easily avoidable. The sort you’re not going to bump into the next time you’re buying condoms at the grocery store.

Jo: The problem with the boy next door is that he’s always around. He’s a hard guy to avoid.

Go: Which usually results in one of two things—either you have to stop going to all those places you’d normally go, or you get used to having him around, and next thing you know, you’re sharing a house in the suburbs with a golden retriever and two-point-five kids.

Jo: The stuff of horror movies.

Go: It really is. Which is why today’s episode is going to be centered around the sort of guys you don’t want to hook up with—unless, that is, you’re looking for something serious. You probably don’t want to hook up with the resident advisor in your dorm, for example.

Jo: Or the guy who sits next to you every Monday and Wednesday during history lecture.

Go: The cute cashier at your local Trader Joe’s.

Jo: Your best friend’s brother.

Go: Thank God neither of us has any brothers.

Jo: [laughs] We’re basically talking anybody and everybody who runs the risk of getting a bit too tangled up in your life. It’s better to keep a safe distance.

Go: That’s right. Because the harder they are to avoid—

Jo: —the harder it is to avoid your feelings getting all scrambled up along the way.

CHAPTER16

I woke to my alarm with a splitting headache. Whatever success I’d had in keeping my drinking to a minimum was effectively shot to hell last night, but somehow I found myself wishing I’d drank more so that I wouldn’t have to remember it. I was still dressed in my romper, penis-shaped Mardi Gras beads threatening to strangle me in my sleep. If that wasn’t some sort of big, fat metaphor dangling right between my boobs, I didn’t know what was. I yanked it from around my neck—stopping midway to untangle it from my hair—and threw it in the trash.

I reached for my phone to shut off the alarm and checked my notifications. Two missed calls from Mom last night; I forgot to tell her yesterday was the bachelorette party. I made a mental note to call her back later and switched over to my messages, groaning with relief that I hadn’t sent Declan any angry texts after we parted ways. But at the bottom of our texting thread was a fresh message, sent at 6:03 this morning.

Declan: can we please talk about last night

My memory of last night was foggy up until the arcade, and everything that happened after. Those parts were Technicolor, surreal, like an exceptionally vivid dream. I had kissed Declan. Not just kissed him back, but actually wanted him. I had broken Rule Number Six, and I’d broken it bad. There was no way I could dodge him for the rest of the trip. He was the best man, and I was the maid of honor, and they’d planted us in rooms that were right next door. We were going to keep bumping into each other, whether I liked it or not.

But what bothered me more than any rule-breaking was that he was the one to reject me. Not just reject me, but actually get mad that I wanted to have sex with him. Every inch of me burned with humiliation. I didn’t know what sort of weird, puritan background he sprang out of, but where I came from, it was a little old-fashioned to judge a girl for enjoying sex. Archaic, actually. The burning welled in the pit of my stomach, embarrassment brewing with anger. Loathing.

Declan Walsh was a fucking asshole.

In conclusion, no, I didn’t want to talk to him about last night. Instead, I opened a new message to Jo.

Margo: Sorry I disappeared last night. I think the brownies caught up with me.

I had already showered and was sorting through all the clothes I’d brought—I was running low on underwear and would have to figure out where the laundry facilities were, and soon—when my phone went off.

Jo: You’re good! Too hungover for cake tasting?

Margo: No such thing