BFF Breakup (4 page)

“Brooke, darling,” she said, looking at me with the utmost certainty, “till the day we die.”

I
F I'M TELLING THE TRUTH THEN THE TRUTH IS:
I think Brooke was scared of starting junior high. That's a bizarre thought to me, but there it is.

I didn't know what she was afraid of. Personally, I wanted to get on with it. To push time along so we could get to high school, college, and
real life
when Brooke and I would share a stellar apartment in a fab city doing fab things. But that's me. Brooke is more slow going. She and her family have lived in that same house since she was three and the city started
developing, literally, right around them—including the neighborhood I live in. I overheard Mom saying one night that they totally could have sold their house to developers and made a ton of money, but they wanted to stay because, as Brooke's mom said, “It's our
home
. Why would we move?” Which I thought was weird, especially if you could get buckets of money for a new, bigger home.

One afternoon right before junior high started, we raided Brooke's sister's makeup stash, then raced out the back door when Abbey unexpectedly came home. We didn't stop running until we reached the creek, which was mostly dry since it'd been weeks since the last rain. We sat down on the dirt and rocks, facing the trickling water of the creek.

After we each caught our breath, Brooke said, “What's it going to be like, you think? Junior high?”

“Stupid,” I said.

“Seriously,” she said.

“Beyond.”

“No, seriously,” Brooke said, and she picked up a stick and started making shapes in the dirt. “What do you think it'll be like?”

The trees threw polka dot–like shadows over her freckled face, and when I didn't answer right away she squinted at me, even though the sun only shone on one of her eyes. Her self-cut bangs, which she'd trimmed
earlier that day, stuck up at awkward angles.

“I don't know,” I began. “Bigger. More homework and tests. Meaner teachers.”

Brooke pulled her knees up to her chest and I knew this meant she'd been thinking pretty seriously about this. She rested her chin on her knee and inspected the polish on her toenails. We'd painted them mint green the week before and they were now chipped and dull.

“I heard that everything is important in junior high,” she began. “Like, where your locker is, or who you get for history, or what lunch period you have. What if you get A-lunch and I get B? Mads, we can't not have lunch together. I get sick to my stomach just thinking about it.”

I hadn't realized she was that nervous about starting a new school. I'd barely thought about it. “Relax, B. Next year is going to be just like last year, only bigger.”

“Exactly,” she said, but she wasn't agreeing with me. “Junior high is going to be the same, only more. More people, more homework, more responsibility—just like you said. What if the classes are too hard? What if it turns out I'm a total nerd? It'll stick through high school, you know. What if we don't have any classes together? What if we stop being friends?”

“Now you're just talking crazy. Seriously, Brooke, what's up?” She looked so mopey, with her jagged bangs
and Abbey's purple-tinted lipstick. “It's going to be fine and we'll be together every single step of the way. It's not going to be a big deal. You're worrying for nothing.”

“I'm just nervous.”

“Well don't be. It's kind of dumb.” She furrowed her brow at me. I hadn't meant to call her dumb but I did think she was being overly dramatic. This was her big problem, going to a new school? She'd still be with half her friends from elementary school so what was the big deal? If she wanted a real problem, she should come hang out at my house for a couple of hours and listen to my parents go at it.
That
was a real problem. “I just mean we'll be fine.”

She sighed, resting her head on my shoulder. “I know. You're right.”

“Naturally,” I said. “Hey, wanna go swimming to wash off this makeup? It feels funny.”

“Gunky,” Brooke agreed, and tossed a rock into the shallow water where it landed with a
thwunk
.

I stood and held out my hand to pull her up. “Race?” I asked.

Brooke turned toward my house, and then yelled, “Go!” She was off and running before I had a chance to kick off. I caught up to her, though, and soon passed her. She could try as hard as she wanted but I never let her get too far ahead of me.

M
AYBE I WAS A LITTLE SCARED TO START
junior high, but so what? Most people are afraid of the unknown, of changes and moving into grown-up-hood. I knew everything would be fine, even when Madeline told me so, but I was still a little nervous about it.

Besides, I was also really excited about lots of things that would happen in junior high. Like lockers. I know that sounds dumb, but we'd never had lockers before and I'd always wanted one. Also, we'd get to
pick electives. Electives are classes you get to choose yourself and West Junior High had some really cool ones. When I went with my mom to register two weeks before school started, I had two major problems. One, Madeline and I hadn't discussed which ones we'd take together. And two, Madeline went and got herself grounded and her parents basically cut off all her communication. I was with her when she had the brilliant idea to ride her brother's boogie board down the stairs. She slammed into the front door, chipped the wood and hurt her knee. She was okay, but her parents were furious. I had to go home early and everything, which was sort of fine because their screaming freaked me out a little. First they started yelling at Madeline, then they started yelling at each other. I felt bad for leaving her but I didn't exactly have a choice.

That meant we couldn't spend the night together, and we were going to discuss the merits of each elective and then decide which ones we liked the best. And we couldn't register together. That part wasn't her fault, though, because we had to register by last name. I'm Sullivan and she's Gottlieb, so she had a morning time.

Mom and I pulled up to the school just after one o'clock that afternoon, when my assigned group was scheduled to register. Mom led us to the cafeteria, where she'd taken Abbey three years earlier.

Unlike the cafeteria at my old school, which had round tables with actual chairs, this cafeteria had long tables with attached seats. Although only a few were out now, as most were put away to make room for students and lines. Men and women, who I assumed were teachers, sat behind the tables and looked like they'd rather be anywhere but there. Like they were the only ones?

I looked around for someone I knew, but since we were in blocks by our last names, I couldn't think of anyone I cared about seeing. As my mom signed some official papers, I looked around the crowded room and started to feel a mild case of panic set in. Girls I didn't know ran to each other with their schedules, squealing and jumping and hugging when they realized they had a class together. As ridiculous as they looked, I was jealous. I strained my neck, trying to look around the crowd to see if there was anyone I knew. There wasn't. I wondered how it'd gone with Madeline that morning.

A girl in a plaid skirt and pressed shirt stood in front of me and Mom. I wondered if this was how everyone in junior high dressed. I could never pull it off, but she did look pretty cute. She even wore matching knee-high socks.

“Brooke, pay attention,” Mom said. “Electives, baby.”

“Mom,” I muttered.
Baby?
Did she really have to say that here? In front of someone who might actually become my friend?

The girl turned around. She had wispy blonde hair and a small face. She smiled at me, so I thought I'd be bold and speak to her.

“Which elective did you choose?”

Her eyes seemed to widen when she realized I was talking to her. “Um . . . Foods for Living. I heard you get to bake.” she said.

“Sounds cool,” I said.

Just then, the girl's mom called her name (Lily, I think) from the other side of the cafeteria. I was glad to know that other people were equally as mortified as I was to be there with their parents.

I scanned the electives. Drama. Out immediately. I had no intention of getting up in front of strangers and purposely making a fool of myself.

Debate. If I was any good at this I might have been able to successfully get Madeline out of grounding, or at least I could have argued why she should have been allowed to come with me to register.

Wood Working. Veto for obvious reasons.

French. Ditto. (There are no French people in this town! What's the use of learning their language?)

Spanish. Could likely prove useful later in life, but sounds way too hard and homework-intensive for now.

Choir. Good Lord.

“So?” Mom asked, reading the list over my shoulder. “What do you think?”

“Is lunch an elective?” I asked.

“These look great!” she said. “I wouldn't be able to pick just one.”

“Then you choose. They all sound horrible.” I wondered what Madeline chose, and why hadn't we figured this out sooner?

“How about Foods for Living?”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Because learning to bake like a housewife is so useful.”

“It sounds fun! When else are you going to learn how to cook?”

I shook my head and watched as other kids easily signed up for electives, knowing exactly what they wanted. I watched the Lily girl walk with her mom out of the caf.

“Just think of it, Brooke,” Mom said. “You'll get to eat in class.”

Okay, she got me. “Let me see that description again.” It was basically a cooking class, and if you cooked, someone had to eat it, right? How else would you know if
you'd done it right or not? “Fine,” I said. “I'll take Foods for Living.”

Mom beamed and patted my back. “I think it's best that Abbey and Madeline aren't here. About time you started making decisions for yourself.”

After witnessing my mother try to set up a Smell Party for the woman who completed my registration—a memory so heinous I hope to bury it deep within my psyche so that I actually forget it ever happened—we went home so that I could wait out the rest of the summer in solitary confinement. That's the thing about very best friends: When one of you gets punished, the other does too.

T
HE BOOGIE BOARD MOVE WAS, IN THEORY,
brilliant.

It'd been raining for four days straight and Brooke and I had been passing the time doing one of my all-time favorite activities: We cranked the AC up to high, set my ceiling fan on high, and then huddled under layers of blankets and my comforter to watch romcom after romcom. She's a bit more outdoorsy than I am, so I didn't tell her that sometimes my favorite days are spent doing just that.