Shuffle, Repeat(40)

“My timing. I know, I’m sorry.” And I truly am. “I didn’t want to have this conversation at school tomorrow. I thought we could—”

“No, June. Your timing is fine. Perfect, in fact. Couldn’t be better.” His eyes narrow. “What’s crap is you making me drive all the way the hell out here and pick you up at your house and say hello to your mom and drive you to a park just so you could have the pleasure of choosing the location of our breakup. That is some epic crap.”

I blink at him, shocked. “I’m sorry,” I finally manage to get out. “You’re hurt, I get it. I’m—”

“I’m not hurt, June. I’m pissed. Your timing doesn’t suck. It’s you that sucks. You need to grow some already, learn to freaking drive and…” He stops, shaking his head again. He runs his fingers through his hair, that messy hair that is no longer mine to touch, and I suddenly wonder if there’s a chance this is all a horrible mistake, merely a flash of stupid teenage insecurity or desire for drama. I reach a hand toward Itch but he pulls back.

“Never mind,” he says. “It’s done.”

This morning when I was working out what I’d say to end my relationship with my boyfriend, it didn’t occur to me that I might be the one to cry, that it would be me dissolving into tears before him.

And yet now here I am.

“I’ll call my mom,” I say through sobs. “You don’t have to drive me home.”

Itch glares at me. “I’m not leaving you alone outside in the winter. I’m not an *.” He points to where he parked when we arrived at Cherry Hill, when he thought we were coming here for a make-out reunion, before he knew I was dumping him. “Get in the car, June.”

So I do.





I hear Oliver’s horn outside as I’m shoving my feet into boots. “Hold on!” I yell in his direction, even though he can’t hear me through the door.

When I make it out to the porch, I find him standing right there, waiting for me. “Hello?” I say it like a question and am shocked when the answer comes in the form of a giant hug that lifts me off the ground. “What are you doing?” I squeal as he sets me down and then bounds toward the behemoth.

“Picking you up!” he yells back. “Get it? Picking you up.”

“That’s terrible.” I follow him across the driveway, not acknowledging the way something inside me lit up when he held me. “It’s not a pun. It’s not even a joke.” I reach the car and climb inside. “I can’t believe you get this excited about school.”

“I am a man of high emotion.”

“You are a boy of great ridiculousness,” I tell him as we pull onto Callaway Lane.

The thing I’m dreading doesn’t come up until we’re halfway to school.

“How was the rest of break?” Oliver asks me. “Did you see Itch?”

“Fine. We got together yesterday.”

I can’t put my finger on exactly why I’m not ready to tell Oliver about breaking up with Itch, although I know it’s at least partially because I’m ashamed. I feel bad that I made Itch angry, and I hate how he shined a giant glaring light on the ugliest parts of me.

But that’s not all of it.

The idea of talking to Oliver about Itch—of letting him know I’m single—something about it makes me feel…nervous. It’s too intimate. It exposes me. Leaves me raw and open. It makes me available.

It makes me an option.

So instead, I change the subject. “Do you guys have a new terrible plan for the stupid senior prank?”

“Well, since you asked so sweetly, yes we do,” says Oliver. “The day before spring break starts, we’re going to cover the teachers’ cars with birdseed.”

“No.”

“Perhaps you don’t understand.” Oliver switches to a slower, more pronounced method of speaking. “We’ll put the seed out in the morning, and by the time the last bell rings, all their cars will be covered in poo.”

“Oh, I understood fine,” I assure him. “It’s still awful.”

“Theo thinks it’s genius,” Oliver argues.

“We’ve already established what I think of Theo.” I point a finger at him. “That amount of bird poo will wreak havoc with the paint on the cars. Do you comprehend how little teachers make?”

“I can’t win with you.” Oliver gives a rueful laugh. “You know that, right, Rafferty?”

? ? ?

I come out of the environmental sciences classroom and automatically turn in the direction of the stairwell, but I take only a couple steps before I remember that I don’t go there anymore.

It’s weird and also a little sad.

I know Oliver is probably still in family sciences and I could say hello or hang with him during the break, but instead, I walk past Mrs. Alhambra’s room quickly, with my head down.

I could go to physics early, but then I’d be sitting in my seat when Oliver and Ainsley came in, and the thought of trying to make conversation while avoiding any mention of Itch makes me feel tired. So this time I do go to the stairwell, because I figure that’s the last place my ex-boyfriend will be. There I edge my back into a corner and I ignore all the students bustling past me in an effort to get upstairs or downstairs. I don’t want to see Itch and I don’t want to see Oliver. I don’t even want to see Shaun, because he’ll ask how it went, and then I’ll have to relive the breakup by telling the story of it. There’s only one guy I want to talk to right now, but he’s on a very different schedule from me. I send a text anyway, just in case—