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This tih, it’s different This ti silly, and I know she doesn’t think she’s being silly at all I blaaet all contradictory on her I know I’m supposed to avoid her, so I search her out I don’t want Chuck to be around, so I wait until she has gym class When there’s a few irls’ locker roo here?l?"

This is Joni’s reaction The rest of the girls are nonchalant They all know I’y, and that their boobs mean as much as their elbows to me

Joni’s already dressed, so I know the problem is me

"I want to talk to you," I say

"Didn’t Laura tell you to stay away?" Joni asks She doesn’t see anything weird about this sentence

"I’d rather hear it from you"

"Stay away"

The other girls are giving us space One comes over to back Joni up, but she waves her away

I can recognize her anger so well There’s the way her eyes shoot fire, and the perfect D her arainst her hip

You don’t want to do this, I want to say Which is really , I don’t want you to do this

I’ve witnessed this scene before I’ve heard about it a thousand times And now here we are, and there is no question where her tone is taking us

"Are we breaking up?" I ask quietly Because that’s what it feels like She’s du out," she replies sarcastically There’s a little hurt in her voice, a little bitterness That’s what I latch on to That’s what I’ll take withonto shoulders Towels are folded away The girls around us begin to exit I try to hold on to Joni’s glance for as long as I can, hoping there will be another word to take all the other sentences back She looks atthings in her locker She closes it She puts on the lock (I know the coer here I had expected her to rage I had expected her to be snide Buf I hadn’t expected her tothat hurts me the most So from her, it destroys me I don’t say another word I want to cry in both senses of the word--I want tears, and I want to shout out I push my way out of the locker rooyuisher and stare at the glass that covers it I stare into my oashed-out face, into my own reflection I want to break it, but I don’t dare

We were never going out I wonder if things would have been different if I could’ve gone out with her, if we had been a couple at some point in our lives We always said we had the best deal of all--friendship without sexual tension We thought it was so uncomplicated

"I hate the phrase ‘o We were bundled on her couch, flipping to strange channels "It’s such nonsense When I’ out with someone, we’re not ‘more than friends’--most of the time, we’re not even friends ‘More than friends’led in close to her and vowed to never use the phrase again But now it comes back to me, and I wonder if she’s used it with Chuck, told him that they’reI can’t give Joni is sex The only thing Chuck can give her is sex, froht it would be a contest between the two And I never, ever thought that it would be a contest I would lose

I miss Joni I miss Noah I don’t really ht then, not in the halls But later, after seventh period

"I heard what happened," he says

"How did you hear?" I ask

He looks at irls’ locker rooht as well have broken up over the PA syste up I was planning on us being okay"