chapter 4

My weekend was complete crap and Javier never called. Monday moved along at a snail's pace and in Home Economics I stalked him as usual.

They were totally going to fail, him and Claire, because they had no clue what they were doing. All Javi did was eat all the ingredients and look totally hot. Did I notice some pudge? It was probably just my imagination.

"No, no, no!" yelled Mrs. Kalvin. "You two need to be split up. I don't want the school to burn down." She had been talking to Javi and...Cl-air-e. I hated her name. Mrs. Kalvin turned to the rest of the class and smiled. "Who wants to partner up with these two? Anyone?" Frieda looked at me and grinned.

"I'll partner up with Claire. Reese said he'd be okay with Javier." Mrs. Kalvin clapped her hands together and gave a jovial squeak. Frieda walked over to Claire and Javier found me at my table.

"Hey Reese's Cup." Did I have a right to be upset? I felt upset. "How've you been?" I looked at new Javier and smiled. I wanted things to go back to normal. They just had to.

"Fine. Can you pass me that, uh, bag of chocolate chips?" He poured a handful into his mouth and passed me the bag.

I studied his body like I had been doing for weeks. He was getting bigger again. Javi didn't care about weight, and he never dieted. That was what I liked about him so much, his laid back attitude.

"Carlos told me you stopped by and I was going to call, but I didn't have any time to spare...so, uh, sorry." Now that was majorly shitty. Did I have a right to be upset? Yes, yes I did. He didn't attempt to call me. In my head I pictured Carlos completely forgetting to say anything, but he had, and Javier just didn't call.

"*** you," I said. I didn't ever curse outside of my head. It was so disrespectful that I didn't find it necessary. "I hope you enjoy shaving off your pubes." I didn't know if he had slept with Claire, and I doubted that he had. He was a scared virgin just like me.

"Reese..." I turned away from him and headed for the door. "What's your problem?"

"I don't feel good!" I shouted at Mrs. Kalvin as I ran from the classroom. I ditched the rest of class and went home. I met my grandma at the front of the house tending to her flowers.

"Where's your partner in crime?" she asked, as she had every single day since Javier stopped coming around. I almost said dead, but if Javier died I just wouldn't be able to live with myself.

"He's just been really busy Gran," I said, which was somewhat true. He was too busy for me at least. "I have a bunch of work Gran, so I'm going to go get started on it, okay?"

"Oh, yep. Dinner's on the table." It was only fifteen minutes after three and she had dinner ready. She cooked at different times every day. Once, we had dinner at nine at night. I thanked her and went up to my room.

I called up Frieda, who had become a new friend of mine, and let her have it for doing that today in class. She apologized eight million times before I told her it was alright.

The whole rest of the week I didn't talk to Javi and he didn't try to talk to me. I saw him kiss Claire one day and it made me physically sick.