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You read it right. Manda wasn’t after Marcus. She was after Len. And she got him. Just like she gets every guy she’s ever gone after. Ever. ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH. And I was too obsessed with the idea of her seducing Marcus to even notice.

Serves me right. How did my life become tabloid fodder? Because I’m a moron. Take my brain for scientific research; I apparently don’t need it.

You know what the worst thing is? Worse than realizing that tits always win? Worse than losing my faith in malekind? Worse than being betrayed by someone who seemed incapable of such a thing? Worse than knowing that Len beat me to what I wanted to do all along?

The worst thing is this: that whoever is behind Pinevile Low knew the truth before I did.

That’s what makes me want to crawl under the covers and never, ever come out again.

the eighteenth

Being pissed off expends a lot of energy. So after staying under the covers for who knows how long, I went downstairs this morning for some nourishment. In the kitchen, I discovered that someone had busted into the Chubby Hubby ice cream before I did.

“Bethany, what are you doing here?”

“I was here all weekend,” she said. “If you had left your room, you would know that.”

It was true. I hadn’t left my room since Friday night. My bedroom and its adjoining bathroom was its own self-sufficient little ecosystem. I’d lost all track of time in the outside world.

“Fine,” I said, in a tone that reflected how much I resented that she was here, honing in on my mope time. “But why are you here at all?”

“Grant’s away on business and I don’t want to be alone,” she replied in between licks of the spoon.

I want to be alone.

I thought I could stay in my room forever—until my stash of miniature Baby Ruths and Cap’n Crunch ran out. And it was practically encouraged by my mom, who would have let me stay home from school today even if it wasn’t Presidents’ Day. Funny how my mom wouldn’t tolerate my post-Hope-move moping yet was totally tolerant of this highly melodramatic self-banishment simply because it was about a boy. Funny how I couldn’t muster one-bizillionth of the emotion I’m feeling now while me and said boy were together.

“But you’re not due for another three months,” I said finally. Truth is, Bethany’s bulging belly looked ready to pop at any second. Make no mistake, my sister was still beautiful in that rosy-cheeked, radiant way that pregnant women are supposed to be. And she’d scored the only other benefit I can see to getting knocked up: mammoth mammaries.

“I feel better when I’m around people,” she said, putting her hands on her basketball belly.

I feel better when I am not around people. When I am alone, alone, alone.

Bethany turned the question of the moment on me. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“Don’t be cute,” she said.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not cute,” I said. “That has been made abundantly clear lately.”

“You do look terrible,” she said, emphasizing the word in a way that someone who has never suffered a bad-hair day can.

I looked at my reflection in the spick-and-span kitchen window. Greasy pigtails, shadows under the eyes, an archipelago of acne dotting my forehead. I hadn’t showered or changed out of my tank top and PHS XC sweatpants in four days. I looked like I smelled. Terrible.

I shrugged, grabbed a spoon, and dug into the pint.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” she said. “It’s just that you shouldn’t let yourself go like this.”

I crammed as much ice cream on the spoon as I possibly could, then shoveled the whole thing into my mouth.

“I know this is about the boy who dumped you. On Valentine’s Day.” She involuntarily shuddered at the thought.

My tongue was cold, but I didn’t taste the salty and sweet, chocolate-vanilla-peanut-buttery goodness.

“I’m sorry, Jessie,” she said, settting down her spoon. “Len seemed so nice, too. So not the type to do something like that.”

“He also didn’t seem like the type to start banging the class slut, and he’s doing that, too.”

“Really?!” she gasped, clutching her midsection.

“Um-hm.” The ice cream simply didn