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“I thought we thought she was just trying to make Charlie jealous,” Tegan said.
“We did,” Dorrie said, “but still. If there were actual plans involved . . . ”
“Ahh,” Tegan said. “Got it. Jeb’s not a ‘plan’ kind of guy, not unless he means it. ”
“I don’t want Jeb having plans with anyone—especially Brenna. ” I scowled. “Fake white-girl dreadlocks. ”
Dorrie exhaled through her nose. “Addie, can I tell you something you’re not going to want to hear?”
“I’d rather you didn’t. ”
“She’s going to anyway,” Tegan said.
“I realize that,” I replied. “I’m just saying I’d rather she didn’t. ”
“It’s the holidays,” Dorrie said. “Holidays make people lonely. ”
“I’m not lonely because of that!” I protested.
“Yes, you are. Holidays bring out neediness like nothing else—and for you it’s a double whammy, because this would have been your and Jeb’s one-year anniversary. Am I right?”
“Yesterday,” I admitted. “On Christmas Eve. ”
“Oh, Addie,” Tegan said.
“Do you think couples all over the world get together on Christmas Eve?” I said, wondering this for the first time. “Because it’s all . . . Christmasy and magical, only then it’s not, and everything sucks?”
“So the e-mail you sent him,” Dorrie said in a let’s-not-get-distracted tone. “Was it a ‘Merry Christmas’ kind of thing?”
“Not exactly. ”
“Then what did it say?”
I shook my head. “Too painful. ”
“Just tell us,” Addie urged.
I got off the bed. “Nope, nuh-uh. But I’ll pull it up. You can read it yourselves. ”
Chapter Three
They followed me to my desk, where my white MacBook waited cheerfully, pretending it wasn’t a participant in my disgrace. Puffy Chococat stickers decorated its surface, which I should have scraped off after Jeb and I broke up, since Jeb was the one who gave them to me. But I couldn’t bear to.
I flipped the computer open and clicked on Firefox. I went to Hotmail, pulled up my “Saved” folder, and dragged the cursor to the e-mail of shame. My stomach knotted. Mocha lattes? read the subject line.
Dorrie slid into the computer chair and squished over to make room for Tegan. She pressed the mouse-bar thingie, and the e-mail I wrote two days ago popped onto the screen, dated December 23:
Hey Jeb. I’m sitting here scared, typing these words. Which is crazy. How can I be scared talking to YOU? I’ve written so many versions of this, and deleted them all, and I’m just sick of myself in my own brain. No more deleting.
Although there is something I wish I *could* delete—and you know what it is. Kissing Charlie was the biggest mistake of my life. I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. I know I’ve told you that again and again, but I could keep telling you forever and it wouldn’t be enough.
You know how in movies, when someone does something really stupid like fooling around behind his girlfriend’s back? And then he says, “It was nothing! She was nothing!” Well, what I did to you wasn’t nothing. I hurt you, and there’s no excuse for what I did.
But Charlie *is* nothing. I don’t even want to talk about him. He came on to me, and it was like . . . this rush, that’s all. And you and I, we’d had that stupid fight, and I was feeling needy or whatever, or maybe just pissed, and it felt good, all that attention. And I didn’t think about you. I just thought about me.
It’s really not fun saying all of this.
It makes me feel like crap.
But what I want to tell you is this: I screwed up big-time, but I learned my lesson.
I’ve changed, Jeb.
I miss you. I love you. If you give me another chance, I’ll give you my whole heart. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true.
Do you remember last Christmas Eve? Never mind. I know you do. Well, I can’t stop thinking about it. About you. About us.
Come have a Christmas Eve mocha with me, Jeb. Three o’clock at Starbucks, just like last year. Tomorrow’s my day off, but I’ll be there, waiting in one of the big purple chairs. We can talk . . . and hopefully more.
I know I deserve nothing, but if you want me, I’m yours.
xoxo,
me
I could tell when Dorrie finished reading, because she turned and looked at me, biting her lip. As for Tegan, she made a sad ohhhh sound, got up out of the chair, and hugged me tight. Which made me cry, only it wasn’t crying so much as a spasm of weeping that took me totally by surprise.
“Honey!” Tegan cried.
I wiped my nose on my sleeve. I took a heaving breath.
“Okay,” I said, giving them a watery smile. “I’m better. ”
“No, you’re not,” Tegan said.
“No, I’m not,” I agreed, and lost it all over again. My tears were hot and salty, and I imagined them melting my heart. They didn’t. They just made it mushy around the edges.
Big breath.
Big breath.
Big, trembly breath.
“Did he write back?” Tegan asked.
“At midnight,” I said. “Not last night’s midnight, but the midnight before Christmas Eve. ” I swallowed and blinked and swiped again at my nose. “I checked my e-mail, like, every hour after I sent him the message—and nothing. So I was like, Give it up. You suck, and of course he didn’t write back. But then I decided to check one last time, you know?”
They nodded. Every girl on the planet was familiar with one-last-time e-mail checks.
“And?” Dorrie said.
I leaned over them and tapped on the keyboard. Jeb’s reply came up.
Addie . . . he’d written, and I could feel the complicated Jeb-silence inside that dot-dot-dot. I could imagine him thinking and breathing, his hands hovering over the keyboard. Finally—or at least, that was how I pictured it—he’d typed in, We’ll see.
“‘We’ll see’?” Dorrie read aloud. “That’s all he said, ‘We’ll see’?”
“I know. Classic Jeb. ”
“Hmm,” Dorrie said.
“I don’t think ‘we’ll see’ is bad,” Tegan said. “He probably didn’t know what to say. He loved you so much, Addie. I bet he got your e-mail, and at first his heart lifted up, and then, because he’s Jeb—”
“Because he’s a guy,” Dorrie interjected.
“He said to himself, Hold on. Be careful. ”
“Stop,” I said. It was too painful.
“And maybe that’s what his ‘we’ll see’ meant,” Tegan said anyway. “That he was thinking about it. I think that’s good, Addie!”
“Tegan . . . ” I said.
Her expression faltered. She went from hopeful to uncertain to worried. Her eyes flew to my pink hair.
Dorrie, who was quicker on the uptake with these things, said, “How long did you wait at Starbucks?”
“Two hours. ”
She gestured at my hair. “And after that, that’s when you . . . ?”
“Uh-huh. At the Fantastic Sam’s across the street. ”
“Fantastic Sam’s?” Dorrie said. “You got your breakup haircut at a place that gives out Dum-Dums and balloons?”
“They didn’t give me a Dum-Dum or a balloon,” I said glumly. “They were about to close. They didn’t even want to give me an appointment. ”
“I don’t get it,” Dorrie said. “Do you know how many girls would have died for your hair?”
“Well, if they’re willing to dig through a trash can for it, they can have it. ”
“Honestly, the pink is growing on me,” Tegan said. “And I’m not just saying that. ”
“Yes, you are,” I said. “But who cares? It’s Christmas, and I’m all alone—”
“You’re not alone,” Tegan argued.
“And I’ll always be alone—”
“How can you be
alone when we’re right here next to you?”
“And Jeb . . . ” My voice hitched. “Jeb doesn’t love me anymore. ”
“I can’t believe he didn’t come!” Tegan said. “That just doesn’t sound like Jeb. Even if he didn’t want to get back together, don’t you think he’d at least show up?”
“But why doesn’t he want to get back together?” I said. “Why?”
“Are you sure it’s not some kind of mistake?” she pressed.
“Don’t,” Dorrie warned her.
“Don’t what?” Tegan said. She turned to me. “Are you absolutely positive he didn’t try to call you or anything?”
I grabbed my phone off my bedside table. I tossed it to her. “Look for yourself. ”
She went to my call history and read the names out loud. “Me, Dorrie, home, home, home again—”
“That was my mom, trying to figure out where I was, since I was gone for so long. ”
Tegan frowned. “Eight-oh-four, five-five-five, three-six-three-one? Who’s that?”
“Wrong number,” I said. “I answered, but no one was there. ”
She pressed a button and lifted the phone to her ear.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Whoever it was, I’m calling them. What if it was Jeb calling from someone else’s phone?”
“It wasn’t,” I said.
“Eight-oh-four is Virginia’s area code,” Dorrie said. “Did Jeb take some mystery trip to Virginia?”
“No,” I said. Tegan was the one grasping at straws, not me. Still, when she held up her finger, my pulse quickened.
“Um, hi,” Tegan said. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“You’re the one who’s calling, you doof,” Dorrie said.
Tegan blushed. “Sorry,” she said into the phone. “I mean, um, may I ask who’s speaking?”
Dorrie waited for about half a second. “Well? Who is it?”
Tegan fluttered her hand, meaning, Shush, you’re distracting me.
“Me?” she said to the mystery person on the other end of the line. “No, because that’s insanity. And if I had thrown my cell phone into a snowbank, why would I—”
Tegan drew back and held the phone several inches from her ear. Tiny voices spilled out from the speaker, sounding like Alvin and the Chipmunks.
“How old are you guys?” Tegan said. “And hey, quit passing the phone around. All I want to know . . . Excuse me, could we get back to . . . ” Her jaw dropped. “No! Absolutely not. I’m hanging up now, and I think you should . . . go play on the swing set. ”
She shut the phone. “Can you believe that?” she asked Dorrie and me indignantly. “They’re eight years old—eight!—and they want me to tell them how to French-kiss a guy. They are seriously in need of deprogramming. ”
Dorrie and I looked at each other. Dorrie turned to Tegan and said, “The person who called Addie was an eight-year-old girl?”
“There wasn’t just one. There was a whole gaggle, all yapping away. Yap, yap, yap. ” She shook her head. “I sure hope we weren’t that annoying when we were that age. ”
“Tegan?” Dorrie said. “You’re not giving us much to work with, babe. Did you find out why this gaggle of eight-year-olds called Addie?”
“Oh. Sorry. Um, I don’t think it was them, because they said it wasn’t actually their phone. They said they found it a few hours ago, after some girl flung it in a snowbank. ”
“Come again?” Dorrie said.
My palms felt itchy. I didn’t like the sound of this girl. “Yeah, please tell us what the heck you’re talking about. ”
“Well,” Tegan said, “I’m not convinced they knew what they were talking about, but what they said was that the girl—”
“The phone-flinging girl?” Dorrie interrupted.
“Right. That she was with a guy, and that they were in loooooove, which the eight-year-olds knew because they saw the guy ‘plant a juicy one’ on the girl. And then they asked me to teach them how to French-kiss!”
“You can’t teach someone to French-kiss over the phone,” Dorrie said.
“Plus, they’re eight! They’re babies! They don’t need to be French-kissing, period. And ‘plant a juicy one’? Please!”
“Um, Tegan?” I said. “Was the guy Jeb?”
The giggliness went out of her. I could see it happen. She bit her lip, flipped my phone back open, and hit redial.
“I am not here to chat,” she said, right off the bat. She held the phone away from her head, wincing, then drew it back. “No! Shhh! I have one question and one question only. The guy with the girl . . . what did he look like?”
Chipmunk chatter burbled from the phone, but I couldn’t make out the words. I watched Tegan’s face and gnawed my thumbnail.
“Uh-huh, okay,” Tegan said. “He did? Aw, that’s so cute!”
“Tegan,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Gotta go, bye,” Tegan said, snapping shut the phone. She turned to me. “Most definitely not Jeb, because this guy had curly hair. So . . . yay! Case solved!”
“What made you say, ‘Aw, that’s so cute’?” Dorrie asked.
“They said that the guy did this dorky happy dance after kissing the phone-flinging girl, and that he thrust his fist into the air and yelled, ‘Jubilee!’”
Dorrie drew back and made an okay-that’s-weird expression.
“What?” Tegan said. “Wouldn’t you want some guy yelling ‘jubilee’ after kissing you?”