Interim(64)

“Back where? What are you talking about?”

“I’ve worked too hard.”

“What?”

“I’ve worked too hard to get here.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” Casey screamed, releasing Regan’s arm. “I’ve got a good thing going!”

“You’re dating a guy who cheats on you!”

Casey reared back. “What the f*ck? He does not cheat on me! It was one mistake, and I don’t have to justify anything to you!”

Regan heard her own shrill voice screaming at Hannah about justifying her friendships.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Regan said, “but I’ve gotta go.”

Casey wasn’t satisfied. “Why are you pulling away from me? From us?”

“I’m not pulling away from you,” Regan replied. “We’ve talked about this, Case. Everything’s cool.”

“Yes, you are!” Casey cried. “And don’t give me some bullshit about how you’re self-conscious about your boobs!”

Regan sighed.

Casey bristled. “Oh, I’m soooo sorry this conversation is a bore for you. I’m soooo sorry I keep bringing up the fact that something’s changed with you, and I know you don’t want to hang out with me anymore. With us. I mean, you’re talking to Hannah, for Christ’s sake!”

“It wasn’t, like, a big deal conversation.” Lie.

“I don’t care if you were talking about the weather. Why are you talking to her period? Why are you changing? What’s got you so discontent with your perfect life that you feel the need to make poor choices?”

“Make poor choices?”

“Who you talk to matters.”

Now Regan bristled. “You’re right. It does matter. And we should be talking to nice people.”

“We hang out with nice people!”

“No, we don’t! We hang out with *s!”

Casey’s mouth dropped open. “Who are you?”

“I’m Regan!”

“Where is my BFF?”

“Standing right in front of you!”

“I . . . I’m telling Brandon!” Casey cried.

What the f*ck?

“Um, you’re telling him what exactly?” Regan asked.

“About this change. I’m telling him you’re changing,” Casey said.

It was the weirdest threat Regan ever received. Even weirder than Hannah’s death-by-extensions threat.

“Well, all right then. You do that.”

“Stop it, Regan! Just stop!”

“What do you want me to stop? I don’t know what I’m doing except being myself. So go report that to my boyfriend—that Regan’s being herself!”

She stormed down the hallway, nearly crashing into the doors. They flung wide, jarring against the outer brick walls and slamming closed with a loud swack!

***

“You haven’t started your period yet, have you?” Regan asked Caroline as she plopped onto her sister’s bed.

“Gross, Regan!”

“That answers that,” Regan replied. “Okay, we can hang out then.”

Caroline scratched her head. “I don’t get it.”

“Look, your entire life will change when you get your period. You’ll become emotional and moody and grouchy and awful to everyone around you. So will all your friends. And that spells drama, sweetheart. Drama with a capital D. I can’t handle the drama. Not anymore. But since you don’t have your period, you’re pretty much drama free. So we can hang.”

Caroline blinked. “You’re weird.”

Regan laughed. “What are you doing?”

“Writing a book.”

“Rad.”

Caroline snickered. “That word is so stupid, Regan. Where’d you hear it?”

“Mom.”

“You wanna sound like Mom?”

“Eh. I like the word. Plus, it goes with this shirt.” She pointed to her T-shirt that featured The Two Coreys. “Now tell me about your book.”

Caroline frowned, confused, then shrugged. “Whatever. So my book’s about a horse who can talk, but he only talks to this one girl . . .”

Regan grinned and listened. What was it about girls and horses? And then she remembered something she read a long time ago during her own horse phase. It was written by a psychologist who suggested the underlying reason girls love horses is because they represent power—the desire for control—whether they’re controlling the horse or vice versa. And then it devolved into some Freudian explanation of repressed sexual urges, and she didn’t understand any of it. She was nine.