Allison Diepen - The Oracle Rebounds

In American history class, I can’t concentrate. I keep asking myself what I did wrong. I’ll make a list…

Top Eight Reasons Jared Got Annoyed with Me

1. I play my favorite songs over and over. Which wouldn’t be so bad except:

2. I have no taste in music to begin with (in his opinion). I see nothing wrong with pop music, but he seems to think it’s an evil invention meant to enslave the human race.

3. I’m indecisive. Pizza or Chinese is a decision, for example, that takes many minutes of contemplation and perhaps a pros and cons list.

4. He says I don’t know how to stop and smell the roses, and that I’m always walking too fast and talking too fast and doing too much.

5. I have been known to complain, especially when I have a bad shift at Eddie’s (which, I admit, is practically every shift).

6. People-watching, for me, can be an afternoon’s entertainment. I can set up shop at the mall and observe them for hours. For Jared, it’s a dead bore.

7. When he gives an opinion, I get upset if it’s not what I want to hear. I take things too personally. I take any bit of criticism to heart.

8. I’m a little too focused on Glamour Girl. Yes, I have visited the Glamour Girl message boards a time or two. Is that a crime?

I read over my list. As far as I can tell, none of those reasons justify breaking up with me.

Another possibility comes to mind. Was I too clingy? We’d talked pretty much every day. But half the time he’d initiated it, so he can’t blame me for that, can he?

I know that what-ifs won’t get me anywhere. The cold, hard truth is that if Jared had wanted me to do something differently, he could have asked me. Since he didn’t, I can only assume he didn’t want to work things out.

In chemistry class, my lab partner is Evgeney Vraslov. Skinny, with curly red hair, he’s known to most people at school as “The Bulgarian Supergeek.” But most people are callous and unfair—Evgeney’s a pretty cool guy if you can decipher his thick accent. And smart as all hell, too. I just know he’s going to be the next Bill Gates and his former classmates will be kissing his ass.

I have new respect for Evgeney after seeing him do an awesome dance performance months back at the Halloween dance. And he dresses far better than he used to, thanks to the fashion advice on my website. In fact, Evgeney is one of my most loyal clients. He approaches dating like it’s a science and appears to study everything I post with the same rigor he gives a chemistry experiment. Anyway, I like chatting with him, and we’ve become friends. Whenever he decides to go to the cafeteria for lunch instead of hiding away in the computer lab, he sits with me and my friends.

When I drop my books beside him, he says, “I am sorry for your loss.” Which is what you’d say if someone died, not after a breakup. But the weird thing is, it touches a chord, and I have to bite my lip to keep it from trembling.

“Thanks, Evgeney. It’s for the best.”

He looks puzzled. “Why?”

“I don’t know. It just is.”

I admit, I’d gushed about Jared. Evgeney had asked me about our relationship and I was all too happy to tell him. It’s no wonder this new turn of events doesn’t make sense to him.

I should come clean. Since he’s all about studying relationships, I owe him the truth about mine. Evgeney’s faced a lot of rejection himself; he faces it in the hallways of our school every day because he’s different. There’s no need to put up a facade in front of him.

“Actually,” I say quietly, “it was Jared’s decision, not mine. It took me by surprise.”

He gives a sad nod. “I’m sorry.”

I can tell he means it.

By lunchtime, the breakup is old news. Everything is as it used to be, except that Jared isn’t sitting with us. He’s on the other side of the caf with Tom Leeson and Said Abdullah, two friends he jams with most Thursday nights. Jared doesn’t look my way, not even once. I’m so miserable that my stomach feels queasy. How can he ignore me like that?

It’s as if the past six months have been erased and Jared is now a stranger. The guy who claimed he couldn’t get enough of me has had enough. The guy who could hardly be near me without touching me in some way—entwining his fingers with mine, squeezing my waist—now can’t spare me a glance.

I remember the first time he kissed me. It was after school in the art room. I’d felt a hunger inside him that lit me up, scorching us both, forging our connection. Over the next months his kiss had become familiar to me, but the fire had always been there. The hunger for each other. And for me, at least, our connection had only grown stronger over time.

Looking over at him, I see him tipping his head back to drink some soda. Even the act of drinking is somehow sensual, and a rush of longing goes through me. It occurs to me that I should be glad I never slept with him. I’d been sure that he would be my first, but I’d never quite felt ready, and Jared didn’t pressure me.

“I can’t believe he’s just sitting there.” Ryan’s voice jars me from my thoughts. He’s got the evil eye focused squarely on Jared.

Amy snorts. “I think he wore that outfit two days in a row.”

I want to rise to Jared’s defense. He’s still in the foster-care system, living with an elderly Italian lady who sells lingerie to transvestites. He’s been saving all of his money for art school, and doesn’t have money for new clothes. Plus, I think he has two of the same band shirt.

“Guys, you don’t need to talk about him like that. It doesn’t make me feel any better.”

Ryan turns to me. “It makes us feel better.”

Viv nods. “At least we know what kind of guy he is. Instead of working through a rough spot, he takes off. I heard about guys like that on Oprah.”

“Can we please change the topic?” I ask.

“I’ve got a new topic.” Amy looks at Sharese. “Are you going to tell them, or should I?”

“Tell them what?”

“About your new guy, of course!”

“He’s not my new guy,” Sharese says, shifting in her seat. “We’re going out for dinner, that’s all.”

“Which is obviously a date. Aren’t you going to tell them he’s an Olympic athlete?”

Sharese rolls her eyes. “It wasn’t the real Olympics, I told you. It was the World Transplant Games. Zink’s had a bad heart all his life and got a transplant two years ago. He’s doing well, but he still needs drugs to make sure his body doesn’t reject it.”

“Back up a minute,” Ryan says. “Did you say his name was Zinc, like the vitamin?”

“It’s a mineral,” Sharese corrects, “but yes, that’s his name. It’s his mom’s maiden name. It’s spelled with a k on the end.”

Ryan laughs. “What a name! Like he doesn’t have enough strikes against him already. So how’d you meet him?”

“He’s been in my church youth group on and off for a few years.”

I’m glad to hear that Sharese has a new guy in her life. Her last crush, on an ice-cream scooper named Mike P., came to nothing. By the time she’d worked up the courage to give him her number, he’d quit the Dairy Freez, never to be seen again.

“That’s so romantic,” Viv says. “He struggles with his health for years, and now he can finally ask out the girl of his dreams.”

Sharese makes a face. “Easy, turbo. It’s only a date.”

“So is he cute or what?” Amy asks.

“He’s cute, yeah. He’s kind of short. His heart condition stunted his growth.”