Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [93]
I know this is going to sound like a crazy question—especially since you aren’t currently dating anyone—but I’m going to ask it, anyway: You would tell me if you did it, right? I used to think that I wouldn’t want you to tell me—because my nonsexed status would make me feel left out and alone—but I’ve changed my mind. I know that the kind of sex that you would have is the kind that I need to hear about—romantic, right, and real. Hearing about a devirginization like that would validate my decision to wait. So I hope you tell me when it happens. And I promise to do the same, if I’m not too senile with old age and can remember how to use a telephone.
Virginally yours,
J.
february
the fourth
I got accepted to Piedmont University today. They even offered me an honors scholarship that covers half my tuition and gives me priority housing and class scheduling. In any other situation I’d be psyched. I have no intention of settling for Piedmont or any of the others until I hear from Columbia, but I can’t tell my parents that.
This sucks. It really sucks. Especially since I made the mistake of mentioning to my parents that Piedmont was my number-one choice. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
“Jessie!” my dad said. “I am very proud of you.”
This was a very magnanimous gesture on his part, since we do not speak.
“We are so proud of you!” my mom said, enveloping me in a hug.
“You must call Len! We must go out to dinner and celebrate!”
“Yes,” my dad said, “it would be nice to have something to celebrate.” (Subtext: Since you’ve done nothing of importance since ruining your life by quitting the cross-country team.)
Of course, I can’t have any part of such a celebration.
“Actually, I was kind of leaning toward . . .” I tried to guess which acceptance letter would come last, the one that would buy me the most time until I found out from Columbia. I went the alphabetical route. A, P, S, W. “Williams.”
“Williams?!”
“Williams?!” echoed my father. “Since when is your first choice Williams?”
“Uh . . .”
Okay, Jessica. Come up with something good. Come up with something really, really good. Something your parents won’t be able to resist.
“Since I applied for an honors scholarship that pays full tuition?” My voice went up at the end of the lie unintentionally. And I was gnashing my lips down to the gums. Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
“You did?!”
“Why didn’t you tell us?!”
“I didn’t want to get your hopes up?” Again, a question more than an answer.
“As the ones footing the bill for your education, young lady, we need to know these things,” my dad said.
“Right,” I said, feeling as guilty as ever about Columbia. “I’m sorry.”
But not sorry enough to tell them the truth.
After a quasi-celebratory dinner (pizza ordered in, not eaten out) I called Len to tell him about my Piedmont/Columbia problem. He wasn’t home—he must have been at rehearsal. Of course, I did the really mature thing of hanging up when his mom answered.
Caller ID. Duh.
Like Mrs. Levy needs another reason to despise me. I know Len told her all about our Health and Human Sexuality abstinence argument because he tells her everything. That woman is as unbalanced mentally as she is physically. When it comes to parents, I think total honesty is overrated. (And look how healthy my relationship with my parents is!) But this is just another topic on which Len and I have agreed to disagree.
I don’t think this is a bad thing. That must have been why I wasn’t worried about it the day it happened because the occasional fight is healthy for relationships. Because if you don’t fight, you don’t care at all.
This is the problem with Bethany and G-Money, I think. They never fight. Ever. But it’s not because they share a romantic soul-mate mind-meld