about this doesn’t add up.
I drop my arms. “Why didn’t you just mail this?”
“I thought you and I could be friends again someday. When we grew up. After everything blew over. Maybe we still can?”
She looks for something in my eyes. Whatever it is, she’s not going to find it. I’m not her minion anymore. I wouldn’t follow her if I was lost and she knew the way to heaven.
“Guess it wasn’t meant to be,” she says, pouting her lips. It almost seems sincere. Then she shrugs. “C’est la vie.”
“So …” I say, trying to wrap my head around this. “You’re just leaving?”
Annie cocks her head. “Already sold the house.” She pats the hood of the car. “And the Beamer. All we have to do is drop it off. Plane leaves in three hours.”
“You have to at least say good-bye—”
“I am saying good-bye—”
“To someone who cares. You …” I swallow. “You know how Zumi feels about you.”
Annie shrugs. “I know how I feel about her.”
I clench my fists. “God, you’re unbelievable. What would it cost you to tell her you’re sorry you have to go?”
“Wow, Mel … it’s been a while since I’ve seen you this worked up. Don’t waste it trying to protect someone you’re not friends with anymore. Someone who hates you.”
Annie opens the car door.
I step down off the porch. “You really came here thinking … what? That I’d want to see you again? You don’t care about anybody. At least now Zumi will finally believe it.”
“She’ll get over it. You did. Au revoir.”
The instant she closes the door, the car accelerates away and turns the corner without slowing at the stop sign.
I sit down hard on the porch next to the box. I can’t look at it.
Ten minutes later the front door opens.
“Mel?” HJ says. “Something wrong?”
Only that I gave away Zumi, my best friend, to someone she wanted more, walked away, watched the bridges burn, and now it was all for nothing.
“Mel?”
I can’t explain it. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t know where to begin.
HAMSTER IS RUNNING
HUMMINGBIRD IS FLYING
HAMMERHEAD IS CRUISING
HANNIGANIMAL IS DOWN/MIXED
Midway through the movie I look around again. I can’t say there’s not a dry eye in the house since only half of them are dripping. The rest are dry and distant, from rolling or from thousand-mile stares. Declan is slouched so far down I doubt his butt is on the seat cushion. Holly never slouches and her expression is less slack-jawed, but she’s restless like when she’s bored and trapped.
They’d pulled into the driveway while HJ was trying to get me to talk—I’d completely forgotten they were coming. I ran the box inside, hid it in my closet, ran back out, and tried to act like nothing happened. I didn’t feel like Movie Roulette anymore but couldn’t cancel now without explanations I wasn’t willing to give.
I hoped the movie might stop the conversation with Annie from looping in my head. It’s too fresh to block out on my own. Trying not to think about it, and failing, is winding me up more and more. Every few minutes Holly touches my knee to tell me to stop bouncing my legs; I don’t even know I’m doing it until she does and then I stop, but a few minutes later it happens again. Unfortunately the movie isn’t enough to distract me. Worse, it’s not just boring, it’s aggravating.
If I remember the novel correctly, which I do, and if they didn’t change it much, and they haven’t yet, we’re coming to a part that’s going to be longish, quietish, and unbearable without any ish whatsoever.
I can’t take it much longer, this sappy nonsense playing out on the big screen in front of us. Somebody has to do something about it. For everyone’s sake. But no one will. It’s up to me.
I scrunch down and cup my hands around my mouth …
“In a world …”
Holly’s head whips around.
“… of sobbing twelve-year-old girls …”
People laugh and heads turn. I’m definitely not the only one. It’s not just guys laughing, either. Being immune to this Kool-Aid is an equal-opportunity agony.
“… based on the book that changed your life forever … in the seventh grade …”
Declan laughs. Holly swats my leg and hisses, “Stop it!” but I can’t stop now …
“… comes a movie about a love so strong it defies believability, reason, the ability to digest solid food …”
“Quiet!” someone yells up front. Tearful. Definitely no older than thirteen.
I’m unmoved. These people need to know life’s nothing like what’s on this screen. Besides, too many people are laughing now, pent up from silently enduring an hour of this feature-length Hallmark commercial. They get it.
“And the guy’s a pussy!” some dude in the back shouts. His friends shush him but they’re laughing, too.
“Shut up!” another crying girl yells. She can’t be more than ten. I guess some people’s lives were changed in elementary school. “He’s going to die for her!”
“Spoiler!” someone yells, laughing.
“Snape kills Dumbledore!”
“Shut UP!”
Roars of laughter and a room divided. Holly covers her eyes with one hand.
I press on. “The story of a girl pursued by a dreamboat she doesn’t love whose sole purpose is to die for her … with a smudge of dirt on his cheek and perfect hair …”
“Be quiet!”
“Don’t be quiet!” More laughter.
The room’s in chaos, the laughing faction joking loudly, the sobbing sisterhood whispering indignantly. A woman storms the exit. No way she’s alone. She’s a mom with
