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“Your teen daughter is heartbroken, and you’re forcing her to eat healthy?” I point a celery stalk at her. “This is child abuse.”
“You’re practically an adult, so it would be adult abuse,” Mom says with a roll of her eyes. “Besides, I heard you got some help today.”
“Of course you heard.” I groan. It was one thing when my mom worked at my school and knew everything about me, but now I’m at a new school, and she still knows everything? I sigh. “What exactly did you hear?”
“I hea
rd you went to talk to the counselor today. That was a very smart move, Isla. I’m proud.”
“Is that all?”
She nods and grabs a colander from a cabinet, dumping a handful of kale into it. “Why, what else happened?”
I take exactly one second to decide if I should tell her about the support group. “Nothing,” I say as I pull off rubber bands from the celery. “I just talked to that lady, and I feel better now.”
“That’s wonderful.” Mom’s voice is ten times more relaxed. I nod and try to siphon some of her positivity as we chop and rip and dice everything into a massive salad. I’d been trying on my own to stop texting Nate, and had been proud of myself for only texting him once a day. But now that my “homework” from the support group is to ignore him … it feels like an impossibly hard challenge. The Mission Impossible of broken hearts.
An hour goes by, and then two. Although my phone sits like a priceless heirloom next to me on my bed, it is nearly seven thirty in the evening, and I still haven’t turned it back on. I am fully aware that I’m like a crackhead going through withdrawal as I flip channels on TV and stare blankly at my pre-cal homework. I am a Nate addict. I am a cell phone addict. I am desperate to send him just one more text, one simple, perfect line of words that will change his heart and have him take me back.
The steady tap tap tap of my pencil on the calculus textbook lulls me into daydreams of Nate … only I’m not daydreaming about Nate Miles specifically. I don’t know how much time goes by, but eventually I realize I’m just daydreaming. I’m alone. I want someone to love, to hold, to care about. And I want them to care about me. Maybe it’s not Nate at all. He never had time for me anyway—unless we were both at the same football field or the same party thrown by jocks.
I pick up my phone, turn it over in my hands. I take a deep breath and tell myself that I’m being silly. I should sew a giant red P on my chest. P for pathetic. God, what is wrong with me? I shake my head and turn on the stupid phone.
I just want companionship. I don’t need Nate anymore, and I am no longer in danger of texting him. Maybe this support group’s idea of homework was a good one. My phone powers up and makes a series of rings and beeps to alert me to all of the social media happenings I have missed in the last few hours. I ignore it as I finish the last two math problems on my homework.
When I pick up my phone, I see it. Nestled between a notification of six new Instagram likes and three Twitter replies, there is a text from Tess and one from Nate.
My vision blurs and my fingers feel like they’re vibrating. A massive smile forms on my lips. Here I am ignoring my phone and forcing myself not to send him a text to let him know how badly I miss him, and he texted me instead. The pounding in my chest tastes like victory.
I almost don’t want to open the message. I just kind of want to let it linger on the screen, unread and full of promise. The words inside of that message could say anything. It could be the start of something new or the reminder that what I once had is gone.
I fall asleep trying to decide if I should read it.
By the next morning, Nate’s unread text message is like a winning lottery ticket that hasn’t been scratched. I’ve made it this far, I figure I might as well wait until lunch and read the text with the group. I picture Bastian and his hopeful little smile and how proud he’ll be of me for showing so much restraint. Every minute that passes without me reading the text is like one minute of gaining my life back.
And that’s not as important to me as it used to be. It’s like I’m creating a new life, one that’s just my own when my old life was half Nate. Now I am slowly becoming 100 percent Isla Rush. I shove my phone with its unread text into my back pocket as I jog up the stairs to first period English class. I’m on the southern wing of the massive four-story school because I’ve recently learned that this stairwell is the least busy in the mornings. It’s the furthest away from the parking lot, and everyone is too lazy to bother walking down here so they just pack into the other stairwells like anchovies.
I smirk. This school doesn’t control me either. I’m controlling it. I jog a few more steps then grab the handrail, swinging myself around the bend in the stairs. I smack straight into something leather and tall and unfriendly.
“What the hell, bitch?”
Startled, I back up, stopping when my heel hovers over the stair behind me. “I’m so sorry,” I mutter, but the glare the blond gives me tells me she’s not having it. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Uh, yeah obviously,” she spats, glaring down at me from her massively tall and expensive-looking crimson heels. She wears a tight red dress with a leather jacket over it. A hand takes her arm and pushes her backward.
Emory Underwood appears, his shirt ruffled, smudged lip gloss staining his lips. “Sorry about that Iz-la,” he tells me in a steady and low voice. “We’ll get out of your way.”
The girl bitches but Emory tugs her across the stairwell and sinks his arms around her leather jacket. I don’t need to watch anymore. That boy gets around more than the communal paperback books at my old school. I take the rest of the stairs two at a time, and I do not talk to him in English class. But he doesn’t seem to notice.
The hours seem to take forever, and I know it’s all because of this stupid text message. Finally, when the bell rings for lunch, I practically float out of my chair and hover down the stairs and into Mrs. Meadows’ classroom. There is no hesitation as I open the door and slip into the art room, which smells like paint thinner today. It is finally time to read Nate’s message, and I couldn’t be more ready to see what he had to tell me last night.
Ciara caps her nail polish, a neon orange with sparkles, and beams at me when I enter. “Looks like I get five bucks,” she says, grabbing her purse and stashing the nail polish inside. “Trish bet me that you wouldn’t come back today. Hey, will you do me a solid and grab me some pizza? I can’t touch those boxes until my nails are dry.”
“I’ve known you two days, and you were painting your nails both of them,” I say as I walk over to the stack of pizza boxes on the table and make a plate for her and me. Xavier and Trish enter the room together, laughing about something.
Ciara shrugs. “Nail polish is my thing. I have four hundred and thirty-two bottles at home.”
“Holy shit, Ciara,” Trish says. I reach for a slice of pizza, and she bats my hand away. “I want that one,” she says, throwing me a wink. I smile like an idiot and let her have it. That wink of hers is something magical. She takes her plate and sits next to Ciara in the circle of desks. “You might need a support group for nail polish addiction.”
