Chapter NINE
Em toyed with her soggy cereal, then dropped the spoon onto the marble kitchen counter. She had slept terribly, imagining Gabby’s reaction to the news of what had happened between her and Zach. She kept seeing Chase’s expression when he’d walked in on them.
She’d gotten a couple of texts from Fiona and Lauren, saying they were planning a girl day (some post-Christmas sale shopping, pedicures, a couple of slices at Pete’s), and asking if Em wanted to come. But Em couldn’t think of anything more unbearable than spending an entire day with her friends—with Gabby’s friends—thinking about Zach and unable to talk the whole thing through.
Em was certain that Zach was planning to break up with Gabby. He would do it gently, kindly. It would be hard. And they’d still have to keep their fling a secret for a while. But eventually—maybe next year—when Gabby saw how much she and Zach cared for each other, how undeniable their mutual attraction was, she would forgive Em. She’d have to. Gabby was
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her best friend, after all. She always understood.
Or was Em completely lying to herself? She tried to eat a bite of her now mushy Lucky Charms but could barely swallow them.
Em hated feeling like her fate was in someone else’s hands.
She knew she had to wait patiently for Zach to come clean. She knew she had to trust Chase not to say anything.
She sighed, pushed the cereal away, and pulled her laptop toward her. She had to send Chase her poem “Impossible.” It had been their agreement.
She mused over the poem, rereading the first two lines: You enter my heart like a sudden chill—
I don’t know if it’s right, but I know that it’s real.
Of course, no one knew who the poem was about. Not Fiona and Lauren, who both came to the awards ceremony last year and cheered for Em. Not even Gabby. Gabby thought Em had made the whole thing up—that she was just that good a writer. She had no idea which boy Em truly longed for. Which boy was “impossible.”
Just then a new email arrived in her in-box with a little bing!
She clicked over to it. There was a new message from an anonymous sender, with the strange subject line Please, sir, can you spare some change?
Emily clicked open the email and saw a grainy photo of Chase—snapped from an iPhone, clearly—on his knees on the Rambling Brook Bridge. The photo had been snapped from 112
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the side; Chase was shown in profile, in his jeans and peacoat.
It almost looked like a picture you’d see in a catalog, of a man proposing to a woman. It could be a diamond ad. Except there was something off about it. Something desperate. Instead of kneeling on one knee, he was on both, right in the snow, clasping his hands together in a way that made it look like he was begging. There didn’t seem to be anyone in front of him.
Emily scrolled down. The caption underneath the photo was a continuation of the subject: Please, sir, can you spare some change? Times get even tougher for the trailer trash of America. The photo had been sent to Ascension’s entire junior class. Chase was going to freak out.
A worming feeling of discomfort began working in Em’s stomach. She wasn’t exactly in a mood to defend Chase, but still, the photo—and the fact that it had been so widely circulated—
really bothered her. Weren’t people allowed to have secrets anymore? You know, personal lives?
“People can be so bad,” a low voice said suddenly, from behind her.
Em let out a scream, leaping off her stool and knocking it over as she spun around.
“Hey, hey, whoa. It’s just me.” JD caught her stool just before it clattered to the floor. “Jeez, Winters. Jumpy much?”
“You almost gave me a heart attack!” She swatted at him and took a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart.
“Sorry, M&M. I thought you’d hear me come in.” He looked soft and crinkly, like he’d just woken up. He wasn’t even wearing one of his usual ridiculous outfits—just a pair of old 113
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jeans and a dorky T-shirt with a tie drawn on it. “You got that too, huh?” JD pointed to the picture, which was open on Em’s computer. She nodded, her heart still thumping fast.
“It’s just so . . . screwed up,” JD said, plopping onto the bar stool next to Em’s. “And lame. I mean, who would do that?”
Emily could tell that JD was really worked up. He kept running his right hand through his hair, as he often did when upset. He looked very mad-professor-ish.
“I mean, I don’t even like Chase Singer,” JD continued.
“But I still think it’s f*cked.”
“You shouldn’t like him,” Em said, shifting on her stool to face him. “He made your life hell last year. Remember physics? When every time you answered a question, he’d cough and laugh and call you the Fountain of Nerdiness?”
JD blushed a tiny bit. “First of all, Emerly, I am kind of a Fountain of Nerdiness. And second of all, even if he’d called me a Fountain of Ugly Fat Smelly Dumb Booger-Eating Eternal Virgins I’d still think it was f*cked. You know?”
Guilt knifed through Emily. JD was always so damn good.
“I agree. It’s messed up.” Emily closed the photo and tried to change the subject. “So what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be babysitting Melissa or something?”
“I’d rather babysit you,” he said, leaning forward and moving a strand of tangled hair that was stuck to her cheek. “What are you up to? Want to watch a movie?” He beat his palms on the kitchen counter like a drum. His eyes were sparkling too.
“What are you writing?”
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ether, the poem “Impossible” sat open on Emily’s screen.
“A girl has her secrets,” she said, and quickly closed the laptop altogether. “So what? You just came over to harass me?”
She elbowed JD. “I’ve got stuff to do.”
“Oh, so sorry to interrupt,” JD said, throwing his arms up in surrender. “I’m just here for some whole-wheat flour.”
When Em raised her eyebrows, JD continued, “Your mom told my mom she’d leave it out on the counter. My mom’s involved in another classic bread-making experiment. And you know how much I love those yeasty, crustless creations.”
“About as much as you love eating gravel?”
“Exactly. About as much as I would love to eat that nasty mush I can only assume was once cereal,” he said, picking up Em’s bowl and dumping it down the sink. “Next time, just tell me when you’re having a nine-one-one breakfast situation. I would have gotten two Egg McMuffins if I’d known things had gotten so dire over here.”
Em laughed and grabbed the flour canister. As he reached for it, his hands briefly touched hers. He stood there awkwardly for a second, his hair still splayed in every direction.
“Em . . .”
“Yeah?” Unconsciously, she backed up ever so slightly. There was something weird about the way JD was looking at her.
“I—” For a second JD just stood there, staring at her with an expression she couldn’t identify. Em’s heart caught in her throat. She’d seen this look on television shows. She’d read it described in books. It was the look of someone who was about to confess serious feelings. Then JD’s face suddenly snapped 115
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back to its normal, playful alertness, and he jerked his chin toward her bag, which she had dumped onto the kitchen table.
“What’s that?” He motioned to the red orchid, the one she had received from Zach.
“Oh, that?” Em shrugged and fiddled with the hem of her ratty sweatshirt—her dad’s old Harvard Med School gear, which she’d been sleeping in since she was about twelve. And for a second, Em wanted to tell JD everything. The earring, the sign, the snowball, the kiss. Maybe he’d have some sage advice.
He usually did. But then she looked up into his hazel eyes and knew she couldn’t. Not when he was looking down at her like that—like she could never do anything wrong.
He wouldn’t get it.
“Just something my mom picked up,” she mumbled.
JD squinted at her. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Fine,” Em said. Her chest ached. “I have a lot of homework to get done before break is over.”
“It’s just . . . you seem a little on edge.”
“I’m fine.” Em tucked her hands into the too-long cuffs of the sweatshirt. “A little stressed is all.”
“So I guess you don’t have time today to hang out with a Fountain of Nerdiness,” JD said, heading toward the door. “Or a Booger-Eating Eternal Virgin.”
“Aw, JD, that’s not true. Don’t talk down about yourself,”
Em teased, following him into the hall as he started to leave. “I know you don’t eat your own boogers.”
He turned around in the front doorway, letting in a cold gust of wind. “But the Eternal Virgin part?”
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Em laughed, twisting her hair into a bun on top of her head. “Well, that part remains to be seen.”
Once JD left, Em returned to the kitchen. She fixed herself a cup of Calming Chamomile, just what she needed, and poured it into the mug Gabby had gotten her from Cabo last year. Caliente! it said in bright orange letters around the side of the cup. The note Gabby had included with the gift had said, For one of the hottest mamacitas I know. Em still had the note; it was one of the memen-tos she had taped to the edge of her mirror upstairs.
Gabby would understand. She had to understand.
Em blew on the scalding tea, absentmindedly dunking the teabag up and down, and then reached into the cabinet for some honey.
Suddenly the window over the sink slammed open, and a gust of wind burst into the kitchen. The mug flew to the ground, shattering, and hot tea splashed across Em’s sweatshirt.
Em gasped and reached over with trembling hands, shutting and locking the window. For a second, it sounded like someone was wailing. She looked outside. Two pine trees swayed at the corner of the yard. Another big gust of wind sent snow spraying off their branches. Otherwise, the yard was still.
Em stood there for a moment, unable to shake the creepy feeling that had washed over her. She whispered the first line of her poem: “You enter my heart like a sudden chill.” When she’d first written “Impossible,” she hadn’t realized how scary those words could sound.
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