Rock Bottom Girl(95)

I sighed. “I’ve missed you, too, V.”

“So, let’s make a pact that no matter where you end up, we do this margarita thing at least once a year.”

“It’s a deal. So, how’s old, married sex with Rich?”





56





Marley





800 years ago. The Fall Out.





I broke up with Travis the night Jake kissed me.

Unceremoniously.

Two weeks before Homecoming. The dress my mom and I got for the dance hung from my closet door taunting me.

I didn’t know what Amie Jo had seen, but I wasn’t about to give her the pleasure of destroying my relationship. No, I had to do it myself.

It was hard. Travis was hurt, even though I’d left out the part about kissing another guy. There was no need to dent his self-esteem that way. I felt like a bad person. But the relief I felt at not being tied down to a guy I didn’t love was swift. Despite the guilt, despite the instantaneous plummet out of the in-crowd back into the teeming mass of obscurity, I knew I’d made the right decision.

The cheerleaders and field hockey players no longer had to pretend to be nice to me. I even found something oddly comforting about Amie Jo’s snide comments between classes.

Things were back to normal.

Until I found THE NOTE.

Marley,

You and me. Homecoming. Don’t tell anyone. We need to play it cool since you just broke up with Travis. See you at the dance.

Jake





I’d tried not to have any expectations about Jake. He was the bad boy, the rebel. Rumor had it, he’d been caught kissing a substitute teacher last year. And I was well aware of who and what I was. A mousy, socially awkward introvert. I was not the kind of girl that made a guy turn in his ‘playing the field’ card.

We hadn’t talked more than a few flirty sentences since that night. Sure, we’d shared a few steamy glances across crowded cafeterias or hallways. And maybe I’d had a few fantasies about dancing in my pretty dress with Jake at Homecoming.

But I hadn’t actually believed that he’d ask me.

After I’d stopped jumping up and down and squealing, Vicky and I spent approximately seventeen hours dissecting the note word by word. Play it cool? Did that mean I didn’t approach him about the note? You and me. Homecoming? Was he asking me or just stating that we would both be in attendance?

Vicky and I had decided to pretend like nothing had happened and let Jake approach me. The day after I found the note in my locker, he’d sent me a sexy head tilt and a wink in the cafeteria.

It was proof enough for Vicky and me.

I’d been “playing it cool” now for three days. Jake was clearly playing it cool too seeing as how he hadn’t even looked in my direction for days. But that was okay. In just over a week, I’d be dancing with the bad boy in front of our senior class. I couldn’t freaking wait.

I slammed my locker door shut and jumped a mile when I realized Vicky was on the other side of it.

“What?” I asked, taking one look at her horror-stricken face. “Cafeteria run out of French bread pizza again?”

“Worse. Much worse,” she said and winced.

This was serious.

I stuffed my history textbook into my backpack. “Lay it on me.”

“You know how Amie Jo’s dad is a gynecologist?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“She’s telling everyone…” Vicky trailed off and looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was eavesdropping.

“Telling everyone what?” I demanded impatiently.

Vicky dropped her voice to a whisper. “That you’re pregnant.”

“I’m pregnant?” I didn’t mean to shout it, but judging from the looks I got from my fellow hall-dwellers, I hadn’t whispered.

Vicky nodded. “Amie Jo is telling everyone that you went to her dad for the blood test and that you don’t know who the father is.”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s ridiculous and unimaginative.” Pregnancy rumors were the go-to mean girl prank from the unimaginative. “Who’s even going to believe her?”





Everyone, it turns out. Well, except my close friends and hopefully Jake.

In less than two days, Amie Jo Armburger succeeded in spreading the rumor far and wide.

So far, I’d been impregnated by a high school drop-out who worked at the Dollar Tree. Or maybe it was the sweaty eighth grader I’d seduced after school in my car.

I ignored it when someone taped diapers to my locker. I paid no attention to the crying baby doll some joker shoved into my backpack in the cafeteria.

But I started to worry when Coach Norman took me aside before our away game and told me he didn’t feel comfortable playing me without a doctor’s note about my “condition.” Vicky told him he was being a dumbass for believing a stupid rumor, but it didn’t do any good.

I sat on the bench and stewed. My senior year was supposed to be the best yet. Steffi Lynn was long gone, having graduated and moved on to—and failed out of—cosmetology school.

Yet here I was riding the bench until I was able to corroborate my non-pregnant condition to the coaching staff. All thanks to another Armburger Asshole. It couldn’t possibly get any worse.