Invisible (25 page)

I
t was complete and total bullshit.

Oh sure, in the movies, the geeky girl gets the guy, but let's all get real for a second: High school doesn't actually work like that. No way. The absurdly sweet (yet popular) guy might continue being tutored by the geek, but he also keeps making out with his beautiful ex-girlfriend until they decide to give their relationship another shot.

That's how it
should
have worked, but apparently my good luck had run out a long time ago.

Because not only did my perfect hockey-captain ex-boyfriend Logan Beckett
reject me,
Chelsea Halloway, but he then started dating the most awkward girl at our high school. Actually, thanks to an embarrassing YouTube video, the geek accidentally raised her profile beyond the hallways of Smith High School until she became best known as America's Most Awkward Girl.

Yet he still chose
her
over
me
.

Did I mention that all of this was after I had poured my heart out to him? After I had groveled for breaking up with him the first time? After I had put everything—including my self-respect—on the line?

And what did I get for all my trouble? A big, fat rejection.

Maybe I had miscalculated by asking him to reconsider our relationship at his best friend Spencer's party, considering that it was also the location of our breakup. But part of me thought that if we stood together in the gazebo, overlooking the fountain, and kissed one more time, he would realize that we were meant to be together.

I thought he would see that losing him was still hurting me. That regardless of the rumors that had circulated our middle school in the wake of our breakup (mainly that I was ecstatic to have traded Logan in for a more popular high school boy), I'd been a wreck over our split.

I hoped confessing everything would bring us back together.

But now I was finding out firsthand that it hurt even more to be dumped than it does to do the dumping.

Still, I forced myself to keep it together. Even when I saw Logan gently leading geeky Mackenzie Wellesley to his car, smiling at her with transparent affection in a way I didn't think he ever once did with me, I pretended I was fine.

I did just what everyone expected of me.

I tossed my long, shiny, blond hair over my shoulder, sauntered over to the nearest, hottest, available guy, and flirted shamelessly. All the while fighting to keep my voice even and my eyes dry. A girl has to keep up appearances, especially if she wants to maintain her status as the most popular girl at school. So I batted my baby blues at some guy whose name I didn't bother to learn before making my getaway.

My mom always instructed me that it was best to leave them wanting more.

Of course, she had said that in the context of my dance recitals, but it applied to flirting too. In both cases, it takes a lot of practice to hide sweat, nerves, and performance anxiety, but if you let any of it show, it kills the magic. It was a sad testament to my life that I had spent enough time faking happiness that I could flirt while replaying exactly how it felt to have Logan's lips pressed against mine when I rose up on tiptoes and kissed him—a soaring hope that was dashed when he looked at me with nothing more than pity.

But fleeing the party in tears wasn't an option for me.

I couldn't cry over the fact that my perfect ex-boyfriend had shut me down for some loser brainiac. I couldn't spend hours staring at the photos of us drinking hot chocolate at the ice-skating rink and smiling at the camera. I couldn't even rant about the cosmic unfairness of realizing that I had never gotten over my first love only to find out that he had
definitely
gotten over me.

Oh no.

I couldn't do any of that at home.

Because when I pulled into my driveway, I had something much worse waiting for me by the door. My dad's suitcase. I have his teaching schedule memorized, and I knew for a fact that there were no upcoming academic conferences scribbled on the kitchen calendar for
months
. There was no logical reason for his luggage to be slumped against one of our enormous ceramic flowerpots.

That's how I knew exactly what I was about to walk in on: The divorce exit walk of blame.

Not just a trial separation. Not a temporary experiment. Not something that would blow over eventually, like it always did.

And I was right: He was leaving.

I just didn't realize when I stood in the driveway, numbly staring at my dad's suitcase, that I was going to be forced into relocating too.

You would think that losing both Logan and my father in one night would forever earn it the dubious honor of being the very worst evening of my life. It should have been my all-time low. Rock-freaking-bottom.

But it wasn't.

It's funny how being hunted down by a group of certifiable bad guys in a third-world country can change a girl's perspective on what constitutes a tragedy. Not
ha ha
funny,
obviously
. It's more of a
laughing is my only alternative to disintegrating into a million pieces
type of funny. When your every decision is a matter of life or death, even truly ridiculous amounts of personal drama fade into insignificance.

Eat or be eaten.

Hunt or be hunted.

Hide or . . . wind up with a gun aimed at your head.

I found that out the hard way.