Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [34]
It’s probably because I know there is no way we will ever be together.
“I’m supposed to remind you that you, like, hate him.”
I like/hate him. I love/hate him. I love him. I hate him.
“I hate him.”
Bridget sighed. “Yes.”
Bridget is the only one at school who knows that I came thisclose to letting Marcus Flutie devirginize me last New Year’s Eve. She’s the only one here who knows that I didn’t because he had the nerve to come clean about how his desire to sleep with me started out as a game, just to see if the infamous male slut of Pineville could bed the class Brainiac, then evolved into a genuine longing. She’s the only one who knows how I tortured myself every day afterward, wondering how I could have even considered sleeping with Marcus when he had been drug buddies with Hope’s brother, and seemingly unapologetic about Heath’s overdose. She’s the only one here who knows about the destroyed journal from the sick, obsessive second half of my junior year, the one that covered these Marcus-related issues (and many, many more) in psychotic detail. She’s the only one here who knows how, despite my guilt, and how tired I am of being toyed with, I can’t stop thinking about him.
I’ve made her promise not to tell anyone about any of these truths, and I know she’ll make good on it. What Bridget lacks in depth she more than makes up for in honesty. Bridget does not lie. That quality alone makes Bridget my closest PHS ally, which really isn’t saying much because my options are quite limited.
“How about this?” Bridget said all of a sudden, with renewed vigor. “Say everyone in the world had to be put in, like, one of two bins, a fat bin or a thin bin. Which bin would Sara be in?”
This is going to be a very long year, indeed.
Marcus Flutie.
Ahhhhhhhhhh. I said it again.
Cock-a-dooodle-dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
the fifth
Thanks to my “new and improved” messed-up schedule—which now has one less gym, but one more study hall—the only period that comes close to resembling a real class is English with Havisham. (Damn. I mean Miss Haviland. Since I am well on my way to dying a virgin, I vow to make an effort not to make fun of her spinsterhood anymore.) A core of the normal honors group was still intact, but we were joined by at least a dozen other PHS students who had no business being there. Actually, we were the ones who had no business intruding on them , because according to the schedule, it was listed as a freshman basic-skills class and not senior AP. Whatever.
Haviland relished the opportunity to reach a wider and more varied audience than usual. I’d barely had a chance to sit down before she climbed on her soapbox to deliver one of her famous orations. Specifically, her speech was about how whoever hacked into the school’s computer system was obviously bright, yet our generation tends to use its brainpower for mischief, not good. Don’t we see that our spoiled generation takes education for granted? That wisdom is your ticket around the world? That knowledge is power, and these lost days will have a devastating, long-lasting effect on our fragile teenage minds?!
I’m generally amused by Haviland’s acid flashbacks to her hippie protest days, but I was too distracted by the view to pay much attention. Haviland had finally abolished the alphabetical seating system, giving us the privilege of sitting wherever we wanted. And who should choose to sit right in front of me but Marcus, a development that, on principle, I refuse to waste any more words about. I just started writing his name again. I have to pace myself.
But who should choose to sit on the left diagonal in front of me but the new Honors Hottie, Nirvana. I thought it really couldn’t get any better than that. I felt kind of bad for Nirvana, though. I mean, how many gyms and lunches were packed into his schedule? Furthermore, because this was our third year in a row with Haviland, she had dispensed with the usual back-to-school