Shuffle, Repeat(60)

? ? ?

I’m waiting for physics to start when a pink notebook plops onto the lab table. I look up to see Ainsley standing beside me. She gives me a wry smile. “Can I sit here?”

“Sure.” Part of me is painfully curious about what happened between her and Oliver. The smarter—but smaller—part of me thinks I should stay blissfully unaware. Besides, the less we talk, the less guilty I feel about not telling her about the bet.

She sits down and sets her elbow on the table, leaning her head against her hand so she’s gazing up at me. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“I didn’t want to get in the middle of it.” She keeps looking at me, so I elaborate. “It felt awkward.” At least that part was true.

“How is he?”

I’m not sure what the right answer is, so I reply truthfully. “I don’t know. He didn’t say much.”

Ainsley nods. “But he told you we broke up.”

This time I can’t keep myself from asking: “What happened?”

She presses her lips together before answering. “I just didn’t want to do it anymore. Being his girlfriend stopped being fun.”

Wow. It wasn’t a mutual breakup; it was a dumping. Which means Oliver is heartbroken. It sure explains his behavior when we got back from spring break.

“How did he take it?” I ask Ainsley.

“He was quiet. I couldn’t tell if he was upset or angry or what. How was Itch when you broke up with him?”

At least that’s an easy question to answer. “He was really mad.”

As the bell rings for class to start, a last group of kids hurdles through the door, Oliver among them. He stalks right past my (our) lab table without a look.

Ainsley sighs. “I think Oliver is mad, too.”

? ? ?

“Here.” Oliver juts his phone at me as I strap myself in. “Add a song.”

“Why?” I look at him warily. “Did I prove something that I somehow missed?”

“No, but you will. You are amazingly competitive, so as soon as you think it’s been long enough, you’re going to use my breakup as a reason that high school doesn’t matter. Since I won’t really feel like fighting about it or taking it up with Shaun, you’ll win, so here.” He shoves his phone into my hands. “Go ahead. Add your song.”

He cranks the car into reverse and I look down at the phone in my hands. The opening screen used to feature a photo of him and Ainsley smiling at the camera, but now it’s blank.

“I need a second,” I tell him, and pick up my own phone.

A few minutes of purchasing and texting and sending later, our “Sunrise Songs” playlist has one new addition. I touch a final screen and the opening drumbeats reverberate out of the speakers, followed by an acoustic guitar and piano. A moment later, a melodic voice floats over us both.

Oliver frowns. “This doesn’t sound like your usual screamo.”

“It’s not.”

He glances at me. “Then what gives? Who is this?”

“Carly Simon. Seems appropriate.”

I sit back in my seat and cross my arms over my chest just as the chorus of “You’re So Vain” hits the air. Oliver takes the turn onto Plymouth with a little more vehemence than usual. “Cute, Rafferty. Really cute.”

? ? ?

It’s the fourth day of nothing but music on the way to school. I want to have an actual conversation with Oliver, to see how he’s doing, friend to friend. To try to get past this crap about the bet and the breakup. I want to comfort him, to talk it out, to slide my arms around his waist and hug him hard, to feel his breath in my—

No, wait! Not that. Never that.

I just want us to be normal again.

But we’re not.

“Hey, Oliver,” I say over the music as we pull into the parking lot. “I was wondering—”

I stop, because of course Oliver is waving to someone, and of course that someone is Theo, who is strutting across the asphalt toward us. So much for any last hope of reasonable discourse today.

Theo is there by the time we get out. He gives me a very obvious and obnoxious once-over before head-bobbing at Oliver. “You check out that link I sent you?” He cuts his eyes toward me and drops his voice. “The one about literature.”

Yeah, right.

Oliver nods. “The literature was very…well rounded.”

Then some high-fiving and fist-bumping occur, after which Theo makes hand motions that leave nothing to the imagination in terms of what this website link was actually about. It’s definitely—definitely—not literature.

“Bye, guys.” I head toward the school. Unfortunately, Oliver and Theo follow right behind me. They don’t even bother to lower their voices.

“I’d like to try some of that,” Theo tells Oliver, apparently still talking about their gross website. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Who says I haven’t?” Oliver asks, and a sour taste crawls up the back of my throat. My attraction to him shrivels up, turns to dust, and blows away in the spring wind. I know some girls are inexplicably into guys who are pricks, but I am 100 percent not.

Which means, now that I think about it, maybe it’s a good thing Oliver has reverted to his jock-hole ways.