Second Helpings_ A Jessica Darling Novel - Megan McCafferty [97]
Unlike those mystery students who are on absentee lists with stunning frequency and anonymity, it was very conspicuous for Darling, Jessica to miss an entire week of school. Yet even after a week’s worth of ignored phone calls, IMs, and e-mails, I was still surprised when Bridget and Pepe showed up in my bedroom tonight.
“P.U.!” Bridget said, pinching her nose.
“It smells like ass in here,” Pepe added.
Bridget stepped over the depressing detritus—the Diet Coke cans, candy bar wrappers, Cap’n Crunch crumbs, and shredded pages from this here notebook—to open the window. The cold, fresh air hit me before I could complain. It felt better than expected. Clean.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re your friends,” said Bridget.
“And we’re worried about you,” said Pepe.
“I’m fine.” Then I meant to laugh a silly, carefree kind of a laugh, but it came out more maniacal than intended. “HAH-hee-hee-hee-hee-hah-hah-hah-HAH!”
Bridget and Pepe exchanged terrified looks.
“Look, Jess,” Bridget said. “What Len did was—”
“Len? You think this is about Len?”
“Well . . .”
“This isn’t about Len,” I said, while expertly doing the corpse pose on my unmade bed. “I never really liked Len, so how could this be about Len? Oh, no. This isn’t about Len. It’s about me. I’m just taking some me time. A vacation for the soul. A Jessication! Yes! Time out from the stress of school to get back to me. It’s all about me, me, ME!”
Another lunatic laugh followed.
“Well, it’s not working,” Bridget said, pulling me up from the mattress and pushing me in front of my mirror. “Look at you!”
Gasp!
I hadn’t looked at myself since when I was in the kitchen the other night, and I actually gasped when I saw the greasy, zitty, stinky carcass I had become.
And that’s when I started to cry. I was crying not because of what I looked like—because a shower and some clean clothes could change that—but because of the fact that I had let myself sink so abysmally low. I was a zeta-female. And over Len. LEN!
Len, whom I dated for all the reasons I said I wouldn’t go with Scotty last year:
So I’d have something to do on Saturday nights now that Hope is gone.
So I’d have a boyfriend like all normal heterosexual high-school girls are supposed to.
So I’d have a living, breathing outlet for the sexual tension that has built up all these years.
How did I let myself get into a relationship I never really wanted in the first place?
“How did I let this happen?” I asked out loud, in between sniffles.
“Getting dissed is a bitch,” Pepe said, handing me a tissue, misinterpreting the question.
As I honked out the snot, I realized that this was the first time Pepe had ever been over my house. He was more than my little freaky French buddy. He was a friend. A friend who had asked me out and—
“Oh, God!” I said. “I am so sorry I rejected you!”
Pepe shot Bridget a glance. “It’s all gravy, ma belle. I bounced back.”
“And that’s what you have to do,” Bridget said.
Then they went on to explain that Monday was the perfect day to make the transition from hermit to high schooler because Len, Manda, and Scotty wouldn’t be there. Apparently, Scotty opened up a can of whup-ass on Len when he found out about him and Manda. Hence, Scotty’s two-week suspension. After round one had been broken up and Scotty was being led to the principal’s office, Len hauled off and gave him a buck fifty to the face. Hence, Len’s two-week suspension. When Scotty went nuclear after Len, Manda tripped him, then kicked him in the teabags. Hence, her two-week suspension.
“It would serve Len right if he got negged from Cornell because of this,” Bridget said.
“Ha!” barked Pepe.
“Hmm.” I was thinking about something else entirely. “I was kind of hoping Len didn’t want to have sex with me because he was gay.”
Pepe and Bridget glanced at each other nervously, unsure of how to react.
“You know I have a thing for homosexuals.”
Now they were actually smiling. I was showing signs of life.
“Come back,” urged Pepe.