Gretchen McNeil - 3:59

12:45 P.M.

“ARE YOU OKAY?” PENELOPE BLURTED OUT WHEN Josie took the seat across from her in the cafeteria.

“You mean more or less okay than I’ve been for the last few days?”

Penelope cocked her head to the side. “Either?”

Josie shrugged. Between the dreams, her mom, and the nightmare that had become her existence at school as teen-gossip topic du jour, okay wasn’t really a word that applied to her life anymore.

“That good, huh?” Penelope said, reading between the lines.

“That good.” Josie unwrapped her bean-and-cheese burrito and cracked open a soda while Penelope munched on a bag of Fritos. They ate for several moments in silence, until Josie heard a laugh from the corner of the cafeteria. A light, glittery giggle, and one she knew only too well. Before she could stop herself, she turned around and saw Madison sitting next to Nick at the varsity track team’s table, her head buried in his arm.

Nick turned and at that moment caught Josie watching him. His eyes flicked down to Madison, still snuggled next to him, then back up to Josie, a look of apology in his eyes.

Yeah, like that was good enough.

“You’ve got to ignore it,” Penelope said in her matter-of-fact way.

Josie turned back to her. “Ignore it? How the hell am I supposed to ignore it?”

“I don’t know,” Penelope said. “But you’ve got to figure it out. Stat.”

“Why bother?” Josie threw her arms wide. “Everyone already knows. It’s only matter of time before I’m the butt of every joke at the school.”

“Oh, you already are.”

“What?”

Penelope nodded. “Yeah, apparently the new word for when your boyfriend cheats on you with one of your friends is Byrned . It’s trending on Twitter. Even more popular than the unexplained animal attacks.”

Josie groaned and sank her forehead onto the table. She appreciated that Penelope always called it like she saw it, but every once in a while a little tact might have been helpful.

“My point is that you’ve got to start acting like it doesn’t bother you. Or at least don’t stalk him at track practice, okay?”

“Is there anything I do that’s private anymore?”

Penelope shook her head. “Zeke and Zeb told everyone about it in homeroom yesterday. By lunch, it was all over the school that you were stalking Nick and Madison.”

“Shit.”

“And it’s not going to help you, okay? You don’t want him back.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t a suggestion. Penelope was laying down the law. “So do what you have to do to move on. Because Nick and Madison already have.”

3:30 P.M.

As soon as she got home, Josie made a beeline for her bedroom.

Time to purge.

Penelope was right. She’d been pining away for Nick, waiting for him to realize how miserable he was without her and to ask if she’d take him back. But no more.

She plugged her iPod into portable speakers and scrolled through her song list until she found suitably angry music. P!nk. Perfect breakup music. She pumped up the volume and hit play.

Josie grabbed her plastic garbage can and planted it in the middle of her room. Everywhere she looked, something reminded her of Nick. A memento, a tchotchke, a gag gift. Little things, sentimental only because she’d given them that power.

The movie ticket from their first date was pinned on her corkboard. She ripped it down, sending the pushpin spiraling off to the other side of the room, and dropped the ticket in the trash.

She caught sight of the three-inch-tall lime-green bunny that sat on her dresser. Nick had won it at the county fair in one of those rigged ringtoss games and given it to her. Josie snatched it up and launched it into the garbage.

“Two points!”

This was turning out to be more fun than she’d thought.

Photos, gone. Concert-ticket stubs from his favorite band, gone. On the dresser, Josie grabbed an old vase with a red silk rose sticking out of it. They’d gone to Ocean Beach for the day and he’d bought the fake rose from a boardwalk peddler while they were chowing down on hot dogs and French fries beachside. Josie had put it in her favorite vase—an old fifth-grade art project that converted a wine bottle into a mosaic piece of “art”—and given it a spot of honor on her dresser. Now she wanted nothing more than for both flower and vase to be out of her sight. She was about to dump both in the trash when she paused.

The vase was different.

Crazy, Josie realized. A standard wine bottle, probably one of her mom’s favorite chardonnays that seemed to fill up the recycling bin with alarming frequency these days. It had been covered with small squares of chopped-up glossy magazine pages—bits of color and texture, movement, and shadow all layered upon one another to form a pop-culture mosaic. The bottles had then been covered in two thick layers of glue, left to dry for what seemed like months, and finally sent home on the last day of school as the prized fifth-grade “art” project.

But Josie had loved that stupid thing. She remembered how her parents had donated magazines to the cause. Her dad’s Newsweek stack and her mom’s bedside collection of InStyle —both had been ravaged for just the right colors and patterns. And the fruit of her labor had sat on her dresser for years.

Only this wasn’t it.

Sure, it looked similar, but right away, Josie could tell it wasn’t hers. The color scheme was off—all pastels and muted colors, while Josie’s bottle had been covered with vibrant hues. And it was clean. Every other item on Josie’s dresser was blanketed in a light coating of dust, but this vase and the silk flower it held had been recently dusted.

Josie was still pondering the weirdness of the vase that was hers and yet wasn’t, when her cell phone rang. She didn’t even look to see who it was before she answered.

“Hey, Josie.”

Blood thundered in Josie’s ears, blocking out P!nk, and all of the bravado and girl-power strength she’d managed to conjure up during her purge drained from her body in an instant at the sound of Nick’s voice.

3:51 P.M.

“ARE YOU THERE?” NICK ASKED.

Josie’s mouth was dry. “Yeah.”

“Oh. Good.” Nick paused. After a few seconds, Josie heard him clear his throat. “I’m glad you finally took my call.” He paused again as if waiting for Josie to respond, but she couldn’t have if she wanted to. Her brain had seized up, and all ability for rational thought had abandoned her.

“I wanted to talk to you before you saw me at school. I mean saw us at school. Madison and me, but . . .” His voice trailed off. “But yeah, I understand why you didn’t want to talk.”

Yeah, sure he did.

“I feel . . .” Josie heard him swallow. “Bad.”

Bad? He felt bad?

Nick didn’t wait for a response. “I guess I just want you to know that I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“Oh. Okay.” How exactly was Josie supposed to respond to that?

“I know I should have told you that Madison and I had been spending time together after you started working at the Coffee Crush. I mean, it wasn’t anything at first—I just really needed someone to talk to. And then . . . well . . .”

And then you slept with her. Yeah, Josie had that part pretty clear in her mind.

“Not that I’m making excuses,” Nick continued. “I know I hurt you. But . . . I don’t know. Maybe you’ll be better off without me.”

Josie laughed out loud. She couldn’t help it.

“What’s so funny?” Nick sounded hurt.