The Fill-In Boyfriend(15)

Claire must’ve been looking over my shoulder because she said, “Don’t you dare call him.”

My eyes were still wide with shock. It was a message from Bradley: I’ve been thinking about prom night . . . call me when you get home.




I was home, staring at my phone, not calling Bradley. What I had told Daniel was true—I didn’t do repeats. But Claire was right too—I’d always been the one to break it off with a guy. The breakup with Bradley was sudden and I hadn’t been prepared. Maybe it was premature. My mind tried to remind me that he had left me in the middle of the prom parking lot. I didn’t want him back. But it wouldn’t hurt to call him back, get better closure. Maybe if I told him how it felt to be left in the parking lot at prom, by myself, I’d feel better. Maybe it would help me get over this faster because I still got a stupid lump in my throat every time I thought of him.

I needed to touch Call. All the numbers were on the screen waiting for that simple act. What was stopping me? Nothing.

I touched the Call icon. My heart raced as the phone rang. I was going to do this. End it for good. Then why was I relieved when the call went to voice mail? “Heeey,” his prerecorded message said. “You missed me. But I have your name and number on caller ID so unless I don’t want to talk to you, I’ll call you back.” I laughed a little. Bradley was fun. It felt like I hadn’t heard his voice in ages even though it had only been a couple of days. I pushed End without leaving a message then threw my phone on my bed and left it there while I spent the next few hours on homework.

When I went back to my room, my phone showed several missed texts from Claire and a missed call from Bradley. I responded to the texts but I had made an important decision about Bradley. I had to wait to talk to him, give myself some time to calm down. I didn’t want my emotions to tell a different story than my mind. In the meantime, I needed to see fill-in Bradley one more time. He needed to answer one simple question—why had he done it? He’d answer that question away from prom night, under normal circumstances. He’d be in his nerd T-shirt with his shaggy hair. Then I could be done with both the Bradleys and move on with my life.

This was my plan and I was determined to make it work. I started by opening my closet and retrieving my yearbooks from the top shelf.





CHAPTER 8





My friends and I normally went off campus for lunch so it wasn’t hard to stay behind claiming make-up testing. It also wasn’t hard to find where Bec and her boyfriend hung out with a few other friends by the empty portables that were technically off limits during lunch.

I clutched the note with my phone number in my hand. I didn’t want to admit how many times I had written my number so it looked the perfect amount casual, the perfect amount deliberate. I had never done that for a guy before. It added to my frustration over this whole situation. I just needed to talk to him, figure out his prom motivations, get him out of my head, and then it would be over.

Bec and another girl were playing tic-tac-toe in the dirt using sticks.

“Hi, Bec. Hi, Nate,” I said when I approached. It had taken me two yearbooks and an hour and a half to figure out Nate’s name but I did. He didn’t seem impressed with my efforts. He just waved a half-eaten apple at me in greeting. Bec didn’t even look up from her game.

I held up the note. “I was hoping you’d give this to . . .” I paused, praying that either Bec or Nate would provide me with a name.

Bec just looked up and said, “My brother?”

“Right. Will you give this to him for me?”

She filled in an X on the board in the dirt. “No.”

“Please.”

“Oh, well, since you asked nicely . . . no.”

Her friend laughed. “Oh, look, it’s Gia Montgomery. You told our friend his band sucked and that he should take up a new hobby.”

I gasped. “I did not.”

“Oh, that’s right. Your friend Jules did and you laughed. Same difference.”

I remembered that. It was the end of a very long day of bands trying out to play for prom. They were the fifth horrible band in a row and my head had been pounding. Jules, who’d volunteered herself as one of the judges and had done a pretty good job of being nice, couldn’t hold her comment in any longer. I did laugh. We all laughed. I shouldn’t have. This was probably the “bigger offense” I’d committed that Bec had referred to the day before.