Geek Abroad by Piper Banks

over an hour.”
    “I didn’t feel like talking then.”Hannah reached over and switched on my bedside lamp. The light was so bright, it felt like it was piercing my eyeballs. I groaned and pulled the covers up over my head.
    “Have you talked to Dex yet?”Hannah asked.
    “No,”I said through the soft weight of the down comforter.
    “Why not?”
    She sounded genuinely concerned, so I threw back the comforter and looked at her.
    “He’s dating someone else,”I said.
    “No!”Hannah said, looking shocked. “But he was so into you!”
    I shrugged, trying to disguise my pain by feigning indifference. “He never got in touch with me when I was in London. Then my best friend said she saw him out at the movies on a date.”
    “How did she know he was on a date? Did she ask him?”
    “Of course not!”
    “Well, why not?”
    “Because that would have been weird. She’s only met him once. She couldn’t exactly march up to a guy she barely knows and demand to know if the girl he was with was his date,”I said.
    “She could have done it in a subtle way. Besides, that’s not the point,”Hannah said.
    “It’s not?”
    “No. The point is that before you jump to, like, conclusions about this other girl, you should find out if it was even really a date,”Hannah said. She crossed her legs and tossed her golden blond hair over her shoulder.
    “First of all, he couldn’t have been cheating on me, because we weren’t officially going out. We only had one date. And it wasn’t even a real date. I mean, he didn’t ask me out or anything. And second, I told you, he hasn’t gotten in touch with me since that night. I think it’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t like me,”I said.
    “But I know he likes you.”
    My heart gave a little skitter of hope. “Did he tell you that?”
    “Well . . . no,”Hannah conceded. My heart stopped skittering. “But I could totally tell from the way he was looking at you at the Snowflake,”Hannah said. “And when I asked Dex to meet you at the dance, he was really into the idea.”
    “Yeah, well.”I shrugged, wishing Hannah would go away and let me get back to sleep. This conversation was too depressing to stay awake for. “I guess we were both wrong.”
    “I still think you should find out what happened. I’ll talk to him for you.”
    “No!”I practically shouted. Having my stepsister interrogate Dex about why he’d dumped me for the Laughing Girl was pretty much the one thing that could make this situation even more mortifying than it already was. “Please don’t say anything to him, Hannah. Please .”
    “Okay, okay, I won’t say anything,”Hannah said, a bit too airily for my comfort.
    “Promise,”I insisted.
    Hannah inhaled deeply and then sighed. “Fine. I promise I won’t say anything to him. But for someone who’s supposed to be a genius, you’re being really dumb.”
    “Gee, thanks,”I said.
    “I mean it. If I saw Emmett out with another girl, I wouldn’t automatically assume that they were on a date, or that he didn’t like me anymore. I’d wait and make him explain,”Hannah continued.
    I just looked at her. Only someone as gorgeous as Hannah would have the self-confidence to assume that her boyfriend wasn’t cheating on her if she caught him out with another girl. But, then, who would cheat on Hannah? Emmett certainly wouldn’t. He adored her.
    Emmett was a junior at Geek High, and absolutely beautiful. He had chiseled cheekbones, wide shoulders, and sun-bleached blond hair. I used to have a major crush on him, but then he and Hannah started dating. At first I’d been traumatized by their romance, but eventually, I got over it and Emmett. I had to admit, he and Hannah made an adorable couple. They both looked like they’d walked hand in hand off the pages of a J.Crew catalogue.
    “So, guess what?”Hannah said, tiring of a conversation that didn’t revolve around her. “Mom’s throwing me a sweet-sixteen birthday party next