So Over You by Gwen Hayes Read Free Book Online

you get home from church?”
    “You like football?”
    “I love football. Well, not really, but I’ll watch it with you anyway.”
    “I thought there was some kind of rule…”
    “I’m good at bending rules. Here’s the thing—I’ve decided that you are going to be the closest thing to a BFF I’ll allow myself to have. Whether you like it or not, we’re buddies now.”
    “Okay, psycho girl. But if you start wearing your hair like mine and pilfering my clothes like that Single White Female movie, we’re breaking up.”
     

    Chapter Five

    Mr. April

     
    Waves of nostalgia crested over me as I opened the heavy door and stepped into the darkened space. This corner was always best rushed through. At least it used to be. Once you ran through it, down the slightly creepy corridor, a magical kingdom awaited.
    In four years, little had changed. Lights bounced off the walls in green, red, blue, and white. A disconcerting mesh of fragrance permeated the air consisting of nacho cheese, watermelon bubble gum, and feet. Music pumped through an ancient sound system while giggles and screams bounced off the walls, and a disco ball oversaw the mayhem from its perch in the middle of it all.
    I hadn’t been roller-skating in four years.
    I showed up half an hour early hoping to get my bearings on the wheels before I embarrassed myself in front of Mr. April. Standing in line to trade my shoes in for skates, a smile stretched across my face listening to the girls around me.
    “Jake told Lissa that Connor wants to ask me out, but every time I try to talk to Connor, he just says he has to go now.”
    “My mom said I can’t wear eye shadow until next year. That is so lame.”
    “Did you see who Parker was talking to after school yesterday? Ohmigawd, I totally thought they broke up already.”
    The conversations, cute at first because they reminded me of my own misspent middle school days, quickly became tiresome by the time I reached the counter. Makeup, boys, and gossip. Unfortunately, I’m not convinced that the chat would be so different if it were seventeen-year-olds in line instead of thirteen-year-olds.
    Lacing up my boots filled me with apprehension but also a strange warmth—a glow even. Some of my best memories took place inside these walls. The rink used to be my favorite haunt.
    Jimmy Foster’s too.
    An ache quickly replaced the glow. The pang of regret, the sorrow of loss. Those days were a lot simpler. We spent seventh and most of eighth grade here. Together. In fact, we spent every possible minute of every day together, as well as a few illicit nights (not that illicit) in which we had to sneak out of our houses and meet in the dead of night just because we couldn’t stand to be apart for very long.
    I used to really love Jimmy Foster.
    My heart crinkled at the memories, and I tried to brush them off. Remembering the way we were wasn’t going to help me deal with the way we are. Someday, when I didn’t have to manage—daily—the satanic version of the boy he’d become, I’d let my heart have its way. Until then, a fondness for my first crush—no, it was more than that—my first love, would have to wait.
    A boy plopped down on the bench beside me, so I straightened automatically. I wasn’t supposed to meet my date for fifteen more minutes, but since he was the only guy in the room over the age of fourteen and smiling at me, I realized that once again, I’d underestimated Foster’s desire to keep me on edge by having my escorts be early.
    I recognized this date. Dean Darnell was the campus celeb in the way that only the most annoying popular kids get to be. Nobody challenged his run at Homecoming King, though who else would want it? Dean was the kind of guy who blow-dried his blond shaggy Efron hair every morning, and I’d bet money that he had a skin-care regimen. He wore his two-hundred-dollar jeans with the same ease that he climbed into his shiny black Hummer. Those kinds of boys practice being