CHAPTER 1
“I’ll see you in school on Monday.”
I hated the casual way Lizzie said those words. She was acting like she hadn’t stolen my boyfriend, come over to apologize, and expected us to be best friends as if nothing had changed. It made me want to throw the stapler on my desk at her face. Instead, I glanced at my planner and shuffled a few papers around as if they needed to be rearranged . They didn’t .
“Right,” I said, refusing to look at her. I wanted Lizzie to leave. Every second I saw her made me angrier than the last.
She watched me like she expected me to say more—like she expected me to tell her I couldn’t wait to see her at school. When I didn’t , she turned around and left. I could tell she was disappointed, but what did she expect? She knew I was interested in Drew from the first time I saw him walk into our History classroom. I’d been honest with her about my feelings for him from the beginning.
When Drew and I started dating, everything was great, like a fairy tale. Whenever we spent time together, whether we went out for ice cream, dinner, or watched a movie at my house, we had fun. At least I thought we did.
But apparently he enjoyed Lizzie’s company more than mine.
I pushed the red mask I wore to the Halloween Dance off the desk and watched it fall to the floor. Then I kicked it into the wall for added effect. Stupid mask. The night of the dance was supposed to be incredible. Then Drew cancelled so he could see his family in New York for the weekend, and when he came back he was distant. His mind was somewhere else—somewhere I couldn’t reach. No matter how hard I tried to get him to lighten up, it was impossible.
He broke up with me two weeks later. I saw it coming, but that didn’t make it less devastating. I didn’t understand what I’d done to make him so uninterested in me. When I asked, he gave me the “it’s not you, it’s me” excuse, as if that would make it okay. It was so lame, so cliché—he could have given me a decent reason. A real reason. One minute he was happy with our relationship, and the next he was done with me, tossing me aside like I never mattered to him in the first place.
Shannon pulled me aside a week later and told me she saw Drew and Lizzie together in a boat on the lake behind their houses. I didn’t want to believe her at first. But both of them were acting strange and secretive—it was the only explanation that made sense. I couldn’t help but wonder how long they planned on keeping their relationship from everyone.
Then there was the biggest, most hurtful question of them all: How long had they been seeing each other behind my back before Drew broke up with me?
I hated thinking about it.
I tried talking with him about it at Shannon’s party, but as soon as I started getting somewhere, Lizzie barged in and ruined everything. Drew ran after her, leaving me alone and forgotten. It was humiliating.
I walked up to the mirror in my room and glared at my reflection. What was so wrong with me that I wasn’t good enough for Drew? That he left me for my best friend—correction: my ex-best friend—without looking back?
I ran a hand through my long, dark hair, trying to figure it out. My nose had a perfect ski-slope shape that people went to plastic surgeons for, my skin was smooth and free of any blemishes, and my green eyes tilted upwards at the ends in a way that guys found alluring. I didn’t doubt that I was prettier than Lizzie. Her curly hair was constantly out of control, her skin was too pale, and she looked like she should be a freshman instead of a junior.
Despite all of that, Drew chose her. And Lizzie went along with it. She knew about my feelings for Drew—how I loved Drew—and she still took him away from me. Then she had the nerve to come into my house and tell me she thought Drew was her soul mate and she hoped I understood where she was coming from.
The
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