Complete Nothing (True Love #2)(22)

“Shut up, man,” I said, my brain racing. I wanted to call Claudia so bad right then it was killing me. I wanted to tell her how Coach had come down on me. Let her tell me it was no big deal, that tomorrow was another day (her favorite saying). Whatever she wanted to say. Who cared? It was her I wanted to talk to. Always her.

What had I been thinking, breaking up with her?

“What? This is great. Now you can take advantage!” Lester threw his arm out toward the girls hanging out behind the gym. The huge pack of freshmen, the JV cheerleaders, the smaller, sexier klatches of juniors. These girls were always, always waiting, like our own personal fan club. Normally, Claudia would have been there too, if Boosters got out early or she didn’t have another club meeting. I scanned their faces, looking for Claudia’s pale skin, her freckles, her thick hair. But of course she wasn’t going to be there. Why would she be? I’d broken her heart.

You had to do it, a voice inside my head told me. Why put off the inevitable?

Because she’d be here. She’d be here right now.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Gavin said. “Are you sure about this? I thought you—I mean, I thought you and Claudia were like . . .”

“What?” I demanded, really wanting to know. “We were like what?”

“Amish people?” Lester said.

“Repressed Amish people?” Mitchell supplied with a laugh.

I shook my head and kept walking.

“Look, the point is now you can be free,” Lester said, jogging next to me. “Enjoy your senior year. Dude, we’re going to the city this weekend. It’s gonna be epic!”

He and Mitchell slapped hands. Gavin looked confused. Hurt, almost. Like I’d just told him I’d run over his dog. Seriously. The guy loved his dog more than anything. Even his mom.

Lester stopped walking and slapped my shoulder pad. “Just look at that, man. This could all be yours.”

The JV cheerleaders were practicing some dance routine, looking right at us. One of the girls, a dark-haired hottie with an incredible body, did this bent-over move that was like something out of a porn video. She looked back at me past her butt and smiled.

I got hot behind my ears, feeling guilty for looking, but then I realized I didn’t have to feel guilty. I was single. I was a free man. There was no one waiting for me. No one reminding me to study or forcing me to figure out my life. No one I had to worry about losing, because she’d already been lost. There was only this girl, dancing like she was dancing just for me.

“Seeing the beauty of your decision?” Mitchell said.

I said nothing, and the guys laughed.

“Hey, Pete!” Orion shouted. “A bunch of us are going to the diner. You guys wanna come with?”

He was standing with some other juniors, including our starting linebacker Josh Moskowitz; his girlfriend, Veronica Vine; and her hottie friend Darla Shayne, plus some of the other girls who always hung around with them. I glanced at my friends, and Gavin shrugged. I might not be ready for slutty cheerleaders, but I could hang with my teammates and their girls. Their admittedly hot, popular girls.

“Yeah. I’m in,” I said, happy at least, for the distraction.

“It’s the first day of the rest of your life!” Lester crowed as he kneaded my shoulder with one hand.

I smiled, but my heart felt heavy. The rest of my life, without Claudia.





CHAPTER ELEVEN


Claudia


“I don’t get it,” my sister, Casey, said, shoving a heaping spoonful of ice cream into her mouth.

“Don’t get what?”

We were leaned back against my velvet headboard, watching The Lucky One on the big-screen TV hung on the opposite wall, with huge bowls of ice cream in our laps. My sister, only ten months younger than me, with the same red hair and fair skin, prescribed movies and ice cream as soon as I’d told her the story of my day, and she now sat cuddled into my side, her pedicured toes touching mine. Casey was a varsity cheerleader, a star of the track team, and one of the most popular girls in the junior class. Unlike myself, she’d gone through a string of boyfriends and breakups, so she knew exactly what to do in this situation. As I sucked some chocolate off my fingertip, Zac Efron grabbed Taylor Schilling by the face and laid a kiss on her like nothing I’d ever experienced. I’d always wanted Peter to grab me and kiss me like that, like his life depended on it, but he never did. And now he never would.

My stomach turned, and I set my half-empty bowl aside.

“I told you not to pick a love story.” Casey shook her head. “We should be watching Sucker Punch or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not this crap.”

I opened my mouth to automatically contradict her, but then I realized she was right. This was not making me feel better. I picked up the remote and pressed the all off button. The room went quiet and dark. Outside, crickets chirped, and I could hear the horn on the Lake Carmody commuter train blare in the distance. My father was probably on that train. In fifteen minutes he’d come striding through the door and ask about our day. I just couldn’t wait to share the gory details of my afternoon again.

LOL.

“So . . . now what?” I asked.

“I always give myself a makeover,” Casey suggested. “Showing up at school tomorrow looking as hot as humanly possible will make you feel so much better.”