Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend by Carrie Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

his arms around me and I let him. I crumple. There is nothing else to do.

    Tom pulls me into his arms, then he settles me on the floor.
    “You okay?” he asks.
    “Did I shake?” My voice is frantic. I couldn’t have had a seizure. I’ve had no caffeine, no aspartame, nothing. All around me, people stare, but I don’t feel fuzzy brained like when I have one. Oh God. “Did I shake?”
    Tom’s confused. “What do you mean? Shake?”
    “N-nothing,” I stutter. I swallow; try to calm down. “What happened?”
    He brushes some hair out of my face. “You fainted. You were out for like three seconds.”
    I struggle back up, but Tom’s not letting go of me. He thinks I’ll fall again, I bet. “I do not faint.”
    My cheeks turn bright red.
    He smiles, and there’s a swagger in his voice as he says, “What would you call it then?”
    I think. My hands raise up in the air. “Passing out?”
    He laughs some more and the soccer guys all come over, which makes me blush worse. My cheeks feel like they are on fire. They start teasing him. “What did ya say to her Tom? Finally ask her out?”
    Blah. Blah. Blah. I tune them out, but I watch Tom. He smiles but his eyes are pained. He smiles but his hands shake a little like they do when he has to give an oral report in German.
    “It’s my fault,” I laugh. I try to save him. “I got dizzy. Tom was doing his knight-in-shining-armor routine.”
    I bat my eyelashes, but it makes me feel a little woozy and I sway. Both Tom and Shawn grab me and Shawn yells, “Whoa!”
    By now, the whole cafeteria’s looking and Emily’s run over with her hands over her mouth. She knows I’m horrified that I’ll have a seizure in school. She knows it’s unlikely to happen in school. It wasn’t a seizure, though.
    “Did you forget to eat? Girls always forget to eat,” Andrew says. He’s still holding the little alligator.
    “I bought some Postum,” I explain.
    “What’s Postum?” Andrew asks Shawn.
    Shawn shrugs and says to me, “I’m getting you some food.”
    He takes off and Emily bursts in, grabbing my arm where he let go. “She hasn’t eaten since Saturday!”
    I shoot her a death-beam look.
    “She’s not anorexic or anything,” Emily blurts. “She’s . . . she’s just stressed about Dylan. They broke up.”
    I give her super-laser-beam eyes. She covers her mouth again.
    Tom raises his eyebrows. He mouths the words, “So you knew?”
    I shrug, but Emily’s seen the whole thing and she says out loud, “He told her Saturday night.”
    Tom’s back goes rigid. He shakes his head. “That’s crap.”
    “What’s crap?” Andrew asks, looking clueless and silly in his soccer shirt. They are all wearing them. There must be a game today. “What’s crap?”
    “Nothing!” I tell him. “Just how stupid I am passing out. What a weenie. Ha?”
    I stand up, push away the helping hands, stagger over to Emily, and try to look like I’ve got it all together. Even I know I’m failing miserably. Shawn comes hauling ass over and he’s got a bagel in one hand and a grilled cheese in the other.
    “I didn’t know what you’d want,” he says and he looks so sweet and little, like a four-year-old boy who has made his mommy a picture, even though he’s more like six foot eight and could have sex with every single cheerleader in school.
    “Thanks,” I say. “That’s sweet.”
    “Ooo, Shawn is sweet,” Andrew croons and bats his eyelashes.
    Shawn turns red. “Better not let Dylan hear that.”
    The silence sinks into all of us, even Shawn, who still holding the food, lifts his hands in the air and says, “What? What did I say?”
    Emily grabs the grilled cheese for me and pulls me away, back toward our table, but not before I hear Andrew pantomimes the alligator saying, “Shawn, buddy, Dylan is no more.”

    Tips about Postum
Postum is the elixir of the blue-hair set. Even brand new cans look like they come from the 1950s. There’s a dried-up label with