trying to catch up with me. I start running, my backpack smashing against my shoulder blades.
“Rosie! Come on!”
Nothing is the way it was supposed to be this year, and it’s really pissing me off. Tracy was one of two freshmen who made the cheerleading team, and she has totally abandoned our Friday nights at Cavallo’s to hang out with her “squad” friends. Jamie was pulled out of study hall and put in remedial English, and now I only see him in the halls between classes, if at all. Angelo drives me crazy in the mornings, talking my ear off. And yesterday, I went out for the cross-country team.
The tryout was a disaster, a runner’s nightmare come to life. My legs wouldn’t work. My timing was off—I had to tell my brain to tell my legs to move. And when they did move, I couldn’t lift them high enough to take a real step, like I was wearing metal running shoes and there was a giant magnet underneath the ground. It wasn’t even that I ran badly—it was like I didn’t know how to run at all. Before I tried out, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t make the official team, but I was confident I’d make alternate. I mean, I’ve been running long distance since I was nine—how could I not make alternate? But I’m guessing the coach prefers that his alternates actually know how to put one foot in front of the other, which I clearly do not.
On top of all that, I now know exactly who Regina Deladdo is because I’ve had to sit through a million football games to watch Tracy cheer—or try to watch Tracy cheer. Since she’s new on the team, she’s always in the back row. Not that I care. Tracy introduced me to Regina after one of the games, probably to make a point. I could practically see the thought bubble above Regina’s head that said, Tracy, why the hell are you wasting my time introducing me to a nobody freshman?
And last but not least on my Things That Suck This Year list: yesterday my mother told me she wants me to see a shrink to talk about the panic attack I had over the summer. But I’m not even sure that what happened to me at the movie theater was a panic attack. Maybe I just couldn’t breathe because the theater was crawling with mold or mildew or something. Anyway, I’ve been fine ever since. Except for that day in the bathroom when I was hiding from Jamie after school. But that was probably just from the smoke.
Whatever.
I hate my life. And this morning, I feel like taking it out on Robert.
“If you didn’t smoke cigarettes,” I yell back at him as I run faster, “you could probably catch up with me!”
“Come on, Rosie! Rosie the Rose! Just wait up for a second!”
I stop running. He drops his cigarette and keeps walking toward me. I point at it. He stops, turns, steps on it and starts toward me again.
“You’re such a Goody Two-shoe.”
“Two-shoes. Two. Shoes. Plural.”
“Want me to carry your books for you?”
“What is this, the 1950s?” I ask.
“Going to homecoming?”
I bust out laughing. “You’re chasing me down the street at 7:00 a.m. to find out if I’m going to a dumb dance that’s, like, two months away?” I say, walking faster toward school. I’m well aware that I am being unnecessarily mean, but I can’t help it. “It’s only October, Robert. Homecoming is before Christmas.”
“Yeah? So?”
I sigh. “Just ask me if you want to ask me,” I say bitchily. Robert has the ability to bring out the absolute worst in me. Lucky him.
The fact of the matter is, all the freshmen are talking about homecoming already. We started talking about it in elementary school because of the big fight that happened during Peter’s freshman year. Well, not just because of that—also because it’s the first big dance in high school, and it’s cooler than prom because all the alums come back. But the fight was a big deal.
Most normal schools have homecoming at Thanksgiving, but Union High had to change its homecoming after a bunch of alums from rival high schools practically started a riot. Now all the neighboring towns stagger their dances so that no two homecomings are on the same night. This year, ours is right before Christmas break. There are still fights, but at least the fights don’t involve morons from multiple schools. Only morons from one school.
“I don’t want to ask you,” Robert says. “Jamie Forta asked me to find out.” My teeth suddenly hurt from the cold air, and I realize my mouth must be hanging open. “Huh. So it’s true.”
If I’d thought about it, I would have guessed that a) Jamie would rather die than go to homecoming, and b) he would never ask Robert to do anything for him. He probably has no idea who Robert even is. If I’d thought about those things, my mouth would have stayed closed. “You’re a jerk, Robert.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it?”
“No, it’s not.”
“You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”
“All right, what, then?” I say, so annoyed with him that I want to shove him like I did in sixth grade when we had a fight over a game of four-square on the playground. He wanted to shove me right back—I could tell—but instead he lectured me about how a gentleman does not shove a lady. And he did it in the bad British accent that he used for the school’s abridged production of My Fair Lady that year. Girls from that year still call him Henry occasionally, and he loves it—“Good day, Ladies,” he replies, sounding like Prince Charles. In junior high, girls giggled when he did that—now they roll their eyes and make fun of him. But he keeps doing it.
“I’m talking about you and Forta,” Robert answers, reaching into his pocket for another cigarette.
“Don’t smoke those things around me. It’s too early in the morning.”
“I can do whatever I want.”
“Fine. Start killing yourself at fourteen—”
“Fifteen. Soon to be sixteen.”
“Whatever. See if I care.”
“Are you going to homecoming with him?” Robert asks.
“Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I just get the feeling that he likes you.”
“He doesn’t like me, Robert. He doesn’t even know me.” My face is getting hot.
“I saw him watching you at track tryouts yesterday.”
I’m kind of astounded, but not so astounded that I can’t correct Robert. “Cross-country. Track is in the spring.”
“Well, yeah, but you were running around the track.”
“Where did you see him? And what were you doing there?”
“I was just hanging around,” he says a little sheepishly. “I saw him going to his car in the parking lot, and he just stood there for a minute, watching you run.”
My brain is so scrambled that I don’t know what to say. The thought of Jamie watching me run is too much to process. I try to remember what I was wearing yesterday. My favorite gross sweatpants; a Devendra Banhart T-shirt; my old Union Middle School sweatshirt. Hopefully, by the time he was watching, I’d taken off the middle school sweatshirt. Although that would mean that I’d been feeling pretty hot and sweaty at that point, which is not when I’m at my most attractive. Not that I have any idea when I’m at my most attractive. Or if I even have a most attractive.
“Do you know how old that guy really is, Rosie?”
Not this again. “Why are people obsessed with how old Jamie is? He’s a junior.”
“He’s an old junior.”
“Aren’t you the oldest person in the freshman class, and about to become the first person in our class who can drive? Isn’t that a little unusual?”
He