Page 46 of The Do-Over

I heard Nick’s deep laugh as I hopped up and went around the desk as fast as I could. I exited the office just as the bell rang, so I was lucky enough to be swallowed by all the students filling the hallway. I was sure they would be sending a pass for me later, but hopefully I could ditch the building by then.

Macy, Noah, and Josh were no longer by the snack store.

I walked to class with my head high, a smile on my face that I couldn’t contain. I knew that most of the people I passed didn’t even know who I was, but I still greeted my fellow classmates with a supercool chin-nod, like I was starring in my own movie.

In my head, “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys was playing as I strutted toward Chem.

I was almost to my classroom when I passed Lallie, Lauren, and Nicole.

They were standing around a locker loudly cataloging what was wrong with Isla Keller’s outfit while Isla had no idea. She was grabbing a book out of her locker, doing absolutely nothing to deserve their bitchery.

“Seriously, why would anyone wear shoes that atrocious?” Lallie said.

“Oh. My. Gawd.” Lauren Dreyer took the lollipop out of her mouth and pointed right at Isla’s shoes before shoving it back into that hole in her face. “So ugly.”

“What is wrong with you?” I asked, startling them—and myself—with my loud voice.

All three of them turned to look at me. Lallie said, “What?”

“Why are you so petty?” I asked, my heart rate rising as I saw a couple of people stop and look in our direction.

“Um, I’m not the one who was just a total asshole over the intercom,” Nicole said, narrowing her eyes at me and looking like an evil queen.

“Yeah, Emilie,” Lallie sneered. “Seriously?”

Now, normally I would’ve been freaking out with an instant stomachache if those girls were getting on me to my face in the hallway. But DONC Em didn’t care. I said, “You do realize that you didn’t actually ask a question, right,Lalz? Or are you too high on bitchiness to piece together more than three words?”

That made Nicole gasp, so I pointed to her and said, “And don’t even start on me, Nicole. I’ve seen you be awful to everyone in the entire world since, like, the second grade, so let’s just both assume that you’re about to spew some hateful shit on me so you can save your breath and my time.”

Lallie and Lauren were puffing up for a comeback—I could see it in their overtanned faces—but I wasn’t having it. “Do you realize that everyone—like, for real,ev-er-y-one—in this school who doesn’t hang out with you hates your guts? Think about that. You are the butt of a million jokes—did you know that? It’s on the DL because we’re all terrified of you, but you are a laughingstock to eighty percent of this school.”

Then I grabbed the stick of Lauren’s sucker and pulled it out of her mouth. I almost laughed at the shocked look on her face, but I was able to keep a straight face as I dropped her sucker and walkedaway, “Sabotage” back to pumping in my head as I floated down that hall.

When I got to Chemistry, I went straight to my table. Nick walked in a minute later but he didn’t say a word. He just raised an eyebrow and sat on his stool.

“What kind of car does he have?”

“What?” I unzipped my backpack. “Who?”

“Josh. You said his car was stupid, remember?”

“Ah.” That made me smile because Josh thought that thing was the greatest vehicle to ever rumble over the planet. “A 1959 MG.”

He rewarded me for knowing with one of his smirks and said, “Ouch.”

I watched his Adam’s apple move when he swallowed and I was struck by how beautiful he was. Dark hair, ridiculously blue eyes, beautiful cheekbones, and lashes for days. And his body looked hard. I was pretty certain if I ran at him full speed, I would bounce off him instead of knocking him over.

Mr. Bong came in and immediately started lecturing. I didn’t have the notes, but I was apparently never going to need them, either. So instead of getting out my notebook, I pulled out my phone.

Dad: Clearly you’re not going to call me back, so you’re grounded from your phone when you get home. Where is my car?

I knew I should feel a little bad for taking his baby, especially after the nice-but-not-real moment we’d shared last night, butsomething about his response pissed me off. On most days, he and my mother both took hours and hours to respond to the tiniest of questions. The time I had an allergic reaction to cashews at summer camp and needed to know which urgent care to go to, it took each of them—and they didn’t live together—over an hour.

Yet when I waited an hour to respond to my dad about his car, he was losing his shit.

My phone buzzed.

Stankbreath: Can you come in today? Beck called in sick and since I gave you Sat off, you owe me.

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