JAMIE HASN'T BEEN in study hall since Friday. It’s now Wednesday. Since Monday, I’ve spent the period pretending to read A Separate Peace while trying to come up with something to say to him, something that will right the wrong I committed on Friday by stupidly pretending I didn’t know his name. As lame as it sounds, I’m not used to having to come up with answers to these kinds of dilemmas by myself. I usually talk to Tracy, but I can’t do that this time.

I ran after her on Friday night, catching her just a few blocks from her house. I told her I was sorry for what I did but that I meant what I said—Matt was acting like a jerk. She didn’t agree, but she didn’t disagree, either, and we’ve had a truce since then. She hasn’t asked me any more questions about Jamie, and I’m not about to bring him up. She’ll want answers, and I don’t have any.

I look across the cafeteria and see her sitting next to Matt, looking up at him adoringly while he barely acknowledges her existence, as usual. She waves at me, and if I had to guess, I’d say that she kind of likes the sight of me sitting by myself. Freshmen at the end of the alphabet always get screwed when it comes to assigned seats in study hall. You get stuck anywhere there are leftover seats, which is at the juniors’ and seniors’ tables. They get to pick their tables first, which is considered a privilege, and then tables are assigned to the sophomores and then the freshmen. The freshmen at the top of the alphabet end up at the few remaining empty tables together, but the freshmen at the end of the alphabet—like someone named, say, Rose Zarelli—get assigned wherever there are leftover seats. Jamie and Angelo and I have a whole table for six to ourselves.

I wave back at Tracy, and she frowns, pointing behind me. I turn.

“Hey, Sweater. I got those quarters for ya.”

Angelo shaved this morning, and it didn’t work out so well. He has little dots of dried blood all over his face, and his stubble is already growing back.

“Oh. Um, that’s okay. You don’t have to pay me back.”

“Really?”

“Keep them. I don’t need them.”

“I don’t need them, either, Sweater.”

“No, I mean, I have money today.”

“So do I. Whaddya think, I’m poor or something? I got paid yesterday.”

“I mean, my mom never kicks me out of the house without letting me finish breakfast, and she always gives me lunch money,” I say, instantly cringing at the fact that I just said lunch money—couldn’t I have just said money, without the lunch qualifier? No, of course not. “Um, so you should keep it in case your mom does that again.”

He says nothing.

“I’m…I didn’t mean… Sorry.”

“How’d you know that?”

“Well, um, I mean, that was Friday.”

“I told you about that?”

“Not exactly.”

“I was talkin’ to Jamie,” he says suspiciously.

“Yeah, but I sit here, too.”

“I guess you do, dontcha.” He leans over me, and I notice that he opted not to wear Axe today. “You’re listenin’ even when you pretend you’re not, ain’t ya?” He takes his jacket off and hurls it on the table, revealing a Metallica T-shirt as ratty as his Nirvana shirt, and a lighter falls out of the pocket. He grins at me. “Want anything? I’m buying today.”

“No, thanks.”

“You sure? I’m gettin’ a coffee for Jame.”

My stomach drops like I’m on the first plunge of a roller-coaster ride. “He’s here today?”

“Yeah. Even vo-tech guys can only cut so many times before someone catches on.”

“Where is he?” I say too quickly. Angelo, who was walking backward toward the food line, now stops.

“Outside,” he says, looking at me very carefully. “Why? You miss him?”

I’m blushing, but I’m too busy backtracking to pay much attention.

“I just didn’t think he was here, that’s all.”

“You been looking for him.”

“No, I haven’t—”

“What’s the deal with you two? You doin’ it?” He sits down and whacks me too hard on the shoulder. “Come on, you can tell me. I know everything about him. He won’t care.”

“Why are you asking me if you know everything about him?” I say, sort of proud of myself for a second.

He’s a little puzzled until his brain catches up with his ears. “All right, I don’t know everything about him. But he tells me about all the girls he bangs, so you can tell me if you’re doin’ it.”

I’m unprepared for the jealousy. It dries out my mouth. A slow smile crosses his face.

“Look at you. You’re all pissed off that he’s with other girls.”

“I’m not pissed off. I don’t care. He can do whatever the fuck he wants.” I figure if I throw in the F-word, it’ll sound better, but of course, since I’m not really practiced at throwing in the F-word, it just sounds stupid.

“You two are doin’ it! Did he ‘pop your cherry’?” he asks with air quotes. “How old are you, anyway?”

I amaze myself by starting to cry. It comes out of nowhere. Tears pool in my eyes, and I know that if I move my eyeballs at all, or if I blink, those tears will spill on the table. So I look down, trying to be still, concentrating on keeping my last little shred of pride intact.

He whacks me again, a little more gently this time. “Sweater, gimme the details,” he says, conspiratorially. “Jamie’s gonna tell me anyway.”

“Tell you what?”

I’ve wanted to see Jamie for five long days now so that I could apologize and set the record straight about the name thing. And any other time, I’d be thanking god that he showed up to get Angelo away from me and off the topic of my “cherry.” But right now, I’d rather be taking a test I didn’t study for than have to see his face. I make the fatal mistake of turning my head slightly, and a fat tear splats on the table. I glance up. Then two more fall. Angelo, to his credit, looks a little mortified by the waterworks.

“I’m just trying to get Sweater here to tell me what’s goin’ on, that’s all. I didn’t do anything. I swear, Jame. I didn’t touch her or nothin’. Well, I hit her on the shoulder but not hard. I didn’t hit you hard, did I?”

I can’t answer, even though I feel bad that he feels bad. We all just sit there. Teenage boys don’t know what to do with a crying girl. Even the crying girl doesn’t know what to do with the crying girl.

“I’m gonna go get that coffee now, Jame.”

“Yeah, you do that.”

“I hate when I make girls cry. Fuck,” he says. He wanders off, looking over his shoulder, completely bewildered.

The cafeteria seems to go silent as Jamie sits down across from me. “What did he say?”

I’m memorizing the initials scratched into the top of the table. JH, JG, SW, SR, TR. My throat is so constricted from trying not to cry that it aches like the worst strep ever, and I’m afraid of what my voice will sound like if I talk. Mostly, I just want to keep my nose from running in front of him.

“Rose.” I love the way he says my name. It starts somewhere in his chest and it has a Z instead of an S. My eyes rise to meet his, and he looks so concerned that I almost start to cry again. “What did he say to you? Was it about your dad?”

It would be a lot easier to explain my reaction if I were crying about my dad. And maybe I am for all I know. My mom warned me in her annoying therapy voice that I might cry about him without even realizing that that’s why I was crying. Maybe that’s what’s happening now.

Jamie reaches out his hand, but it stops just short of mine on the table and rests there. He’s got ink on his thumb, but other than that, his hands are immaculate. Beautiful. Strong. I can see the blood in his thick veins. I want to run my finger along them. I bet the insides of his forearms look the same way. I imagine pushing up his sleeve to look.

I shake my head and wipe my face. “Angelo was just teasing me,” I say.

“About what?”

I take a deep breath. “You.”

“Me?”

“He wanted to know if you and I were having sex. And whether I was a virgin.” The word sets my blushing mechanism off at full force. I can’t believe I put the issue of my virginity on the table, but I want him to hear my version of the story— Who knows what the heck Angelo will tell him.

Jamie smiles a little. “He just can’t get any, so he always wants to hear what everybody else is doing.” He pulls his hand back. “Not that we’re doing anything.”

Another tear, hopefully the last one, begins its descent, and I wipe it away before it hits my cheekbone.

“That’s why you’re upset?” he asks.

I nod my head. And it could end right there. I could just call it a day. But my mouth won’t stop running. “He said you tell him everything, about all the girls you…” My throat closes up again, and I can’t finish the sentence, never mind ask him about Regina.

“‘All the girls’? What girls? Do you see any girls around here?”

“He said that you…that you’re with a lot of girls.”

“Forget him.”

“You’re not with a lot of girls?”

He looks at me with mild curiosity and he’s about to say something when it occurs to me that I’ve been waiting for five days for the opportunity to apologize to him. “I’m sorry, Jamie,” I blurt out.

“For what?”

“For the other day. In your car. I knew your name. I’ve known your name since I was in seventh grade. But I was too—”

Angelo puts Jamie’s coffee and a doughnut between us.

“The doughnut’s for you, Sweater,” he says, and he sits at the end of the table, purposely looking the other way. Jamie takes his coffee and stands.

“I’m goin’ outside.” I’m not sure who he’s talking to. “Angelo,” he says sharply. Angelo gets up fast, without saying a word or looking at either of us.

I watch them walk toward the courtyard door. Angelo pushes the door hard, a cigarette already in his mouth, and disappears. Jamie turns, and I think, but I’m not sure, that he winks at me. He’s gone before I can manage a smile. I’m so exhausted and confused that I can’t even eat my doughnut.

prevaricate (verb): to stray from the truth

(see also: to lie like a jerk)

“HEY, WAIT UP!” Robert yells as I’m walking to school. It’s the middle of October. It’s cold, I’m miserable and Robert is the last person I want to talk to. I crank up the volume on my iPod and pick up my pace as some old-school Public Enemy blares in my ears—Peter would be proud.

If anyone ever tried to figure out who I am based purely on my iPod, they’d never be able to do it. Public Enemy is followed by the Pussycat Dolls and preceded by Patty Griffin. I love my Florence + The Machine as much as my Rihanna, my White Stripes as much as my Black Keys. I pride myself on my eclectic musical taste, which has everything to do with Peter and probably not that much to do with me.

“Hey!” Robert yells again. I look over my shoulder. He’s 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 looks at the sky, squinting into the morning sun. “My credits didn’t transfer,” he mumbles.

“That’s why you had to do sixth grade again when you moved here? It wasn’t because you were held back?” I ask. He doesn’t respond. “Stop talking about Jamie like you’re automatically better than him, okay?”

He lights his cigarette and turns his head to the side to exhale while keeping his eyes on me. I am sure he saw Chuck do this on Gossip Girl, and I bet he’s been practicing in the mirror ever since. I suddenly hate that stupid show.

Apparently I hate everything these days.

“I don’t know what you see in that guy. Especially since you could have me.”

Robert has crystal-blue eyes and jet-black hair. There’s no doubt that he’s cute. Last year, he had gaggles of little drama-department geeks trailing him like a Greek chorus. Actually, after he played Jason in Medea, he literally did have the Greek chorus following him around, giggling over everything he said or did. Of course, the irony is that Jason is not exactly the most honorable character in Greek tragedy. He left his wife Medea for another woman, and she went mad and killed their children to piss him off—or, more accurately, to destroy him.

You would think that the actor playing Jason would become less attractive due to his character’s misdeeds rather than more attractive, but the Greek chorus could not get enough of Robert. Maybe the anachronistic biker jacket and leather boots he wore on stage canceled out the fact that he played a two-timing jerk.

Sometimes Robert used the Greek-ettes to try to make me jealous. It never worked.

In June, Robert came to my father’s memorial service. He sat right behind me and handed me a clean tissue every few minutes. My mother will always love him for that. I try to remind myself of that kindness every time I want to tell him to get lost. I usually end up telling him to get lost anyway.

“You could have me, you know,” Robert repeats.

“You’re just what I need, Robert. A convicted felon.”

“Stealing from H&M is not a felony.”

“You mean stealing from H&M twice is not a felony.”

“Sure, that, too.”

Robert has a crappy life, and sometimes he does bad things, like steal and lie. He lives with not one but two stepparents. His mother bailed and his father got remarried. Then his father bailed, and his stepmother remarried, and Robert ended up with her and her new husband. Is that even legal? I have no idea. But it definitely seems crappy to me. As annoying as Robert can be, even he doesn’t deserve that.

He makes another big show of inhaling and exhaling, blowing the smoke through his nose. “Forta likes you.”

“I am not the kind of girl he likes. He likes the Regina Deladdos of the world.”

“Tracy said he carried your horn and opened the car door for you that time.”

“Maybe he was raised well.”

“He doesn’t look like it. He wears the same clothes to school every day.”

“That’s the kind of thing a girl would say.”

“Tracy said it,” he admitted.

“She would notice.”

“Robert and Rosie sounds better than Jamie and Rosie.”

I look at him for a second, this guy I’ve known since I was eleven, and he looks hurt. To be honest, I like the sound of Jamie and Rosie. Robert and Rosie is too much alliteration for me. But I’m not going to say that. I’ve already been mean enough for one day, and it’s only seven-fifteen. Besides, I don’t feel like reminding him what alliteration is.

“I’ve always aspired to select my relationships based on how they’ll sound inscribed on the wall in the lavatory,” I say.

“Stop talking like that, AP English.” He grabs my coat to make me stop walking. “Will you go to homecoming with me?”

I knew this was coming. And even though homecoming is two months away, I’m kind of surprised it took him this long, considering he’s been suspicious of Jamie since the first week of school, and also considering that everyone we know has already decided who they’re going with. Tracy’s going with Matt, who still isn’t speaking to me, which is fine, because I’m not speaking to him, either. Stephanie is going with the swim-team thug that Tracy and Matt set her up with this summer, Mike Darren. Everyone knows who they’re going with except me. And Robert.

To be honest, I don’t want to go. I’m not in the mood for dancing these days—go figure. But I have to, or I’ll never hear the end of it from Tracy. Or my mother, for that matter. My mother expects me to go on living as if everything were still completely normal. She seems incapable of understanding why I might not feel like going to a dance right now. She seems incapable of understanding me in general.

I look at Robert. “Do you promise not to lie to me ever again?” I ask, knowing full well that this is not a promise he’ll be able to keep.

“I didn’t lie about anything!”

“You told me Jamie Forta asked you to find out if I was going.”

“That wasn’t a lie, that was a tactic.”

“It was a lie.”

He drops his cigarette and concentrates hard on putting it out with his thrift-store Doc Martens. I wonder if he paid for those boots or if he acquired them on one of his “excursions.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “But I was only using it as a tactic. It wasn’t going to stay a lie.”

I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I get the gist. I start walking again. He follows me.

“Do I have to wear a dress?” I say.

“It would be nice.”

“Do I have to wear makeup?”

“I don’t care.”

“High heels?”

“Rosie!”

“Okay, I’ll go.”

“Don’t sound so excited,” he says.

“I don’t like dances.”

“What are you talking about? You love dancing!”