Page 64 of Adorkable

“But what if you want to—”

“Let’s talk about it later, okay?” He dipped his head to look me in the eye. “No more break-up texts, alright?”

Reluctantly, I nodded. Guess Becks didn’t like getting dumped by phone, even by fake girlfriends. “Alright, but we will talk. Like I said, Becks, I don’t want to hold you back.”

“You’re not.” He smiled, squeezed my hand then jogged away.

Maybe he’s right, I thought, walking to first. Springing this on people might not have been my best idea. The text had definitely been a mistake, but I’d been going for quick and painless.

“Trouble in paradise?”

Hooker was waiting for me at the door.

“No,” I said, walking past her, and she followed. “Becks just got invited to some party.”

“Oh.” Hooker held up her own pink envelope. “You mean, this one? Mercedes was the one with the poster, right?”

“Yeah,” I muttered, remembering the look she’d given Becks. That made at least one girl who’d enjoy our big break-up. She’d probably hit on him before he even left the party.

“You know what this means?”

I sighed and shook my head.

Hooker’s smile widened. “It’s been a while since we performed, Spitz. I’m thinking this would be the perfect opportunity to pull out the old Stetson.”

My mood lifted. “You think so?”

“It’s tradition.” There was an odd twinkle in her eyes now. “Besides, it’s senior year. We’ve got to do it.”

I could feel my eyes twinkling, too. “Which scene?”

“You know which scene.”

I did.

“Do you remember your lines?” I asked, grinning.

She rolled her eyes. “Do you?”

“I’m in,” I said just as the bell rang and Ms. Vega called Hooker’s name.

“Great,” Hooker said, standing. “You better be ready, Spitz. Last time before graduation, we need to make it good.”

The thought had me smiling throughout German.

As the days went on, though, even the idea of crashing Mercedes’s party couldn’t keep my spirits up. Everyone—even teachers—kept stopping Becks, telling him which school he should choose, where he should go. Most of them were so far away; it made me want to cry—or punch someone. When Mr. Pulaski suggested Becks play overseas, I’d seriously considered giving him five across the face.

If our plan was to ease people into the idea of us not being together, he was making it difficult.Reallydifficult. I couldn’t understand it. Whenever I’d bring up the subject of our break-up, he’d just brush me off and say, “Like I said, big and public. We can talk about it more later.”

But we never did.

Worse, after our talk, Becks had upped his F.B.F. game to the nth degree, more handholding, more beneath the ear kisses. He took me to the movies, to dinner, invited me to hang out at his house, came to watch TV at mine. None of this was new. We’d done all those things for years, but there was one huge difference.

He was always touching me in some way, my hand, my waist, my face. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it. There wasn’t a nerve in my body that didn’t respond to him. He had no idea what those small touches did to me—and that was the problem. It didn’t mean the same thing to Becks. He was playing a part, and I was enjoying it all too much. A person could only endure so many of Becks’s touches before their mind turned to the dark side. The idea of keeping Becks as my F.B.F. forever had already passed through my head. We needed to end it. Soon.

Hooker called me Saturday to get my head straight.

“Did you practice?”

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