Page 19 of Remember Us This Way

My mouth drops open, and I gape at the little brat. “First of all, I’ll have you know that I am the coolest person you’ll ever meet. You’d be lucky to have someone like me walk you into school. And second, if I’m driving you, then I get to go in.”

“Forget it. I’ll take the bus.”

“You know, I could always ask Dad to take you.”

Her eyes bug out of her head. “No. No, please don’t. You know how loud he likes to sing in the car. Everyone will see.”

I laugh and push up off her bed. “Ah, if only you had a cool big sister to drive you instead.”

“Ugh,” she groans. “Fine. You can drive me, but you’re not walking me in.”

“Fine, but I’m not dropping you around the corner. I’m stopping right at the school gates.”

Hazel groans and lays down on her bed again, picking up her pen to get back into her work. “Fine. Only if the music is turned down.”

I grin wide, knowing she couldn’t resist. “You got yourself a deal,” I tell her, and with that, I make my way back to my room and hit play on my playlist before getting to my homework, refusing to get behind on day one.

I try to keep Noah off my mind, but it’s hard. Seeing him today feels as though I’ve been hit by a train. Everything is scrambled. My thoughts, my heart, my emotions. I’m all over the place. But I’m not going to let him break me, no matter how hard he pushes me away.

I’m just about finished when my phone rings, and I scramble through the sheets to find it. Tarni’s name flashes across the screen. “Hey,” I say, quickly answering the call before I miss it.

“Hold up,” she says. “I’m adding Cora and Abby.”

Before I can even respond, Tarni is gone. The call goes quiet for only a moment before she returns, the girls all speaking over each other as though they were already mid-conversation. “Yo, Zo. You there?” Tarni questions.

“I’m here,” I say, pushing the rest of my homework aside and getting comfy on my bed, realizing I’m in for the long haul now.

“Abby is holding out on us,” Tarni says. “I’ve been dying to know all the filthy little details about her sexcapades with Liam.”

“Ughhhh,” Abby groans. “Not gonna happen. It was hot and wild, but now that we’re back at school, it’s nothing but an old wives’ tale. I’m better off pretending it never happened.”

“I’m so angry with him,” Cora says. “He’s such a player. I don’t know what you were thinking getting involved with him in the first place. Surely you knew he was going to break your heart, right? No guy just suddenly changes like that, no matter how tight your vag is.”

Rolling my eyes, I put my phone down on my bed and hit speakerphone before getting up and closing my door, not needing Hazel to overhear this. She’s a feisty kid who’s growing up way too fast, but she doesn’t need to be exposed to this. Most of the time, I can’t stand being exposed to it. But if I weren’t friends with these guys, I’d literally have no one.

Climbing back onto my bed, I drag my homework in front of me again before starting on what’s left of my calculus work.

“Men can change,” Abby continues. “Whether it’s for good or bad, they change.”

“I second that,” I say, adding my two cents to the conversation.

“Well, Liam isn’t changing for the better,” Tarni says. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s hot, but he’s not about to quit screwing around and start dating, and if he did, it wouldn’t be with a junior. He’d date girls like Shannan Holter.”

Abby goes silent, and I feel for her. I hate how oblivious Tarni can be sometimes. She has a habit of not filtering her thoughts before allowing them to tumble out like word vomit. Clearly Abby likes Liam, otherwise, she wouldn’t have wasted her summer with him. She’s hurting over his dismissal, and hearing how carelessly Tarni shrugs it off as though she’d never be good enough to date someone like Liam must have stung.

Cora laughs, clearly oblivious to Abby’s silence as well. “Who knows. From what I heard, Shannan offered to have an orgy with Noah and the whole cheer squad. Seems Liam is old news now.”

“Ugh,” I groan in disgust before immediately zipping my lips and wishing I hadn’t said that out loud. But I couldn’t help myself. The idea of Noah lowering his standards to waste his time with girls like Shannan is nothing but an insult to me. How could he want that over everything we had together?

“You’re such a prude, Zo. Sex is fun,” Tarni laughs, misreading the reasons for my disgust. “When are you going to get over it and just do it? You know, nearly half of the football team have been trying to screw you since the start of the summer. Just pick one and get it over and done with. It doesn’t even hurt that much.”

Cora laughs. “She’s probably holding out for Noah, hoping he’ll see the light and start worshiping at her feet again.”

I clench my jaw, not liking this topic at all. “I’m not holding out for Noah. I just don’t want to screw the first guy who smiles at me.”

“Well, you should,” Tarni says. “Because just like Liam, Noah isn’t going to change, especially not for a good girl like you. He’s down with the easy girls who’ll give him what he wants without making him work for it.”

“You mean girls like you?” I question, my hands shaking.

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