Dad was in a foul mood by the time he rolled in to pick Jennifer up at the bottom of the hill. If she’d known he’d be this late, she would have started walking instead of standing in the cold like an absolute idiot. What was her dad thinking, leaving her out alone like this?
She was glad when they got home. Glad when Dad sauntered into his room and slammed the door shut instead of yelling or telling her how dumb she was for wanting to go to a school dance in the first place.
The truth was humiliating to admit, but Dad had been right all along. Dances were stupid.
The Teen magazine she’d been studying all month lay open on her bed. She ripped out the pages about school dances and flung the shreds into the trash. Too bad their home didn’t have a fireplace. She would have liked to watch the pieces burn.
Hot tears streamed down her cheeks by the time she saw her eighth-grade yearbook on her nightstand. She yanked the cover open. She hadn’t realized it before, but Darren and Lisa’s pictures were just one row apart from each other.
She ripped out the entire page, crumbling it to a ball, wishing there was something else she could do to give voice to her rage. She turned to the page where she knew she’d find Shawna’s photograph when she heard something at her window. At first she ignored it. The wind had picked up. She couldn’t let herself get interrupted by every little sound that made her jump. She had a job to do.
Out with Shawna’s smiling face. Another page to crumble up. Maybe Jennifer should have drawn on the picture first. Given Shawna and Lisa and all of them the hideous makeovers they all deserved.
The humiliating conversation from the bathroom ran unchecked through Jennifer’s mind.
You’re kind of embarrassing yourself the way you’re all over him and everything.
Jennifer gave a roar as she ripped Kylee’s face out of the yearbook then paused to see if her dad had overheard. Most likely, he’d already fallen asleep, but she didn’t want to wake him up with her yelling.
She strained her ears, fearing the sound of her father’s door opening down the hallway. Then she heard it again. A tapping outside her window. Either the wind had really picked up or …
She froze when she saw the flashlight beaming in through the glass. What was going on?
Another rapping. Was it Darren? He knew where she lived, didn’t he? They rode the bus together through all of middle school. Even though she thought she’d been totally invisible to him at the time, he could find a way to remember that much, right?
She wiped the tears from her face then yanked up the blinds. It felt just like in the TV shows. Darren at her window, come to apologize.
Except it wasn’t Darren.
“Shawna?” Jennifer couldn’t remember the last time she’d talked to Shawna without Kylee in arm’s reach. It felt strange to see her alone.
“I came to apologize,” Shawna said, smoothing out her hair. “I didn’t see you at the dance and thought you might be upset. There’s a party going on at Kylee’s house. I wanted to know if you’d come with me.” She paused and lowered her eyes. “I’m really sorry about what we said to you. You know we didn’t mean it. Wanna come?”
Jennifer glanced at the clock on her desk then at her closed door. If her dad found her sneaking out like this, he’d kill her. She thought about how silent and withdrawn he’d been since Mom died. How he could spend weeks hardly leaving his room. How protective he’d gotten of Jennifer. How worried he’d be if he found her gone.
Jennifer was about to fake a sore throat when Shawna lay her hand against the screen. “Come on. Basically everybody’s going to be there.”
Jennifer held her breath. A real party? And Shawna came all this way to invite her?
Jennifer looked at the clock once more. Kylee’s house wasn’t too far away. She could go for just a short time and be right back. Her dad would never know.
Shawna gave a sly smile. “Darren’ll be there,” she added.
Jennifer turned back once more to find her shoes and told Shawna she was ready to go.