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Trish reclines into her desk chair on Friday at lunch, tapping her hot pink running shoe on the floor as she speaks. Her lips always get pouty when she talks about losing Tamara and today is no different. “She was so gorgeous and had the greatest spirit,” Trish says, her eyes far away. “I already had our entire lives planned out in my head. How could she not see that we’re perfect for each other?”
Bastian clears his throat, donning his professional therapist tight-lipped smile. “Trish, we need to come to a place of understanding that Tamara, though you loved her dearly, has moved on with what appears to be 100 percent certainty. You know that until you get to that place of acceptance, you’ll never be able to move on.”
Trish shakes her head. “I don’t want to get to that place. I want to keep up hope that she’ll come back. And I guess that’s why I’m stuck in this group, huh?”
Bastian looks around the room, at the six of us sitting in a circle of desks. “Can we offer some advice on how we finally learned that someone was over us, and it was time to move on?”
“Ooh, I’ll do it,” I say, sh
ooting my hand up in the air as if we were in a real class.
“Yes, Isla,” Bastian says, lifting an eyebrow. Trish is the third person in the group to share her progress, and I haven’t gone yet so no one but Ciara knows about last night’s breakthrough.
I sit straighter in my desk, and I do not acknowledge Emory watching me from the next desk over. I also tell myself for the thousandth time since lunch started not to put any thought at all into the fact that he chose to sit at the desk next to me. It was a random chance, that’s all.
“So yeah,” I say, casting a sweeping gaze over the group, minus Emory. “I knew Nate was over me when he said he was dating other girls.”
There it is. The first mention of the Text Message of Embarrassment from forty-eight hours ago. Trish watches me with sad eyes and Xavier nods empathetically. Bastian scribbles in his notebook and Ciara shoots a finger gun at me, winking.
“She’s made a ton of progress, guys,” Ciara says, throwing her braids over her shoulder. “I’m happy to report that Isla has wiped her ex from social media.”
“Really?” Bastian says, and the extreme surprise in his voice is a little condescending.
“Yes, really,” I say, rolling my eyes. I leave off the part about how Ciara did all the work for me because I was too weak to do it myself. “All the photos of him and comments and every time we checked in somewhere on date night …” I shrug and mock slicing my throat with my thumb. “It’s all gone.”
“You mean you didn’t leave up the pictures so his next girlfriend can see how much hotter you are than her?” Xavier asks. We all look at him, and he shrugs. “It happened to me. Except … well, it was the other way around.”
“One of the popular girls who rejected you posted photos of hotter guys?” Ciara asks.
He nods. “Remember that time last year when I got Morgan to go out for ice cream with me? Well, she posted a selfie of us to her Facebook, and it was single-handedly the best thing to ever happen to me. Then the next day she posted selfies of her sucking face with some football idiot, and she couldn’t even give me the courtesy of deleting the photo of us.”
“Ouch,” Emory says, speaking up for the first time all lunch period. Instinct has me glancing toward the sound of his voice and his eyes pierce into mine from the next desk over. He’s wearing a gray shirt with the word Italy across the front, and I choose to look at that instead of in his eyes. “Sucks to be upstaged by some football idiot.”
Was that a jab at Nate? I keep my face blank and uninterested. I will not let him know he’s getting to me.
Xavier groans. “Tell me about it. That’s the day I learned there’s about ten different ways for girls to say, ‘Damn, your new boyfriend is way hotter than Xavier’ in a Facebook comment.”
“You’ll have your time, man,” Emory tells him. “You’ll find the right girl one day.”
“Wow,” Trish says with a snort. “Was that encouraging advice about dating coming from Mister Player?”
He shrugs and gives her a lazy smile that makes my knees weak.
“Again,” Bastian says with an exasperated tone as if he’s said this a million times, “These are all reasons to stay off social media during a breakup.”
I nod. “I hope I never have to know Nate’s new girlfriend’s degree of hotness. I think I’ll stay off social media for the next ten years.”
“Amen to that,” Ciara says, studying her cuticles. “Only, it’s physically impossible for me to stay off Facebook. Too many fine-ass college guys with single relationship statuses.”
“We’ll get to that later,” Bastian says, pointing at Ciara. He turns to me but then I realize he’s looking beyond me. “Emory, anything you’d like to add to today’s discussion before we move on to Isla’s update?”
He shrugs. “I’m good.”
“I’d like an update,” Ciara says. “You’ve been shockingly alone in the hallways lately.”
I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s noticed how Emory walks straight into first period and gym class without so much as a single swooning girl waving goodbye to him. He’s been utterly alone for the last three days, not that I’ve been paying attention.
Emory sits up straighter. “So when I date too much you guys bitch at me but now that I’m not dating, you’re still complaining.” His eyes cut toward Bastian. “How am I supposed to win at this game?”
