Rule 1: You must not email or IM The Ex ever again. Take his name off your email list.
Sydney stared at Drew’s user name on her Instant Messenger, willing the little yellow smiley face to light up. Where was he at eleven on a Saturday morning if not on his computer?
Usually Saturday mornings she and Drew were either on the phone or Instant Messenger, planning what they would do after he finished playing poker with his friends. Drew liked to have a plan. He had a plan for everything: college, graduation, marriage, and children. He knew he wanted to marry around the age of twenty-six and have children by the time he was twenty-nine.
Not having a plan for tonight was probably killing him. It was killing her. She’d been with Drew so long, his habits had become her habits.
But the absence of an itinerary was hardly the worst thing running through Sydney’s mind. Last night was. Forget the fight. What had Drew done at the party? Did he stay the night at Craig’s? What if he hooked up with someone? Like Nicole?
Sydney’s stomach turned over. Drew knew how much she hated Nicole. That would be the ultimate deception. And if he did hook up with Nicole, would Sydney be able to forgive him? Would their relationship be ruined? She didn’t even want to think about it.
To keep herself busy, she clicked on Yahoo’s horoscopes and looked up hers.
Dear Aries,
Patience is an unfamiliar word to Aries, but the time calls for it. Take a deep breath and relax. What you’re waiting for will come eventually. In the meantime, focus on that major project you’ve put off.
Major project? Sydney wrinkled her nose in confusion. She didn’t have any major projects. And if she did, she certainly wouldn’t have put it off. The new semester at school started Monday. A new semester meant new classes and no major projects.
She hoped she and Drew had study hall together. They’d specifically asked for the same hour so they could sit with each other. Unless he hooked up with Nicole. In which case he should change his name and move across the country because Sydney would kill him.
Sighing, she closed Internet Explorer and lolled her head back against the chair. She stared at the ceiling, noting the canopy of cobwebs in the corner. Ever since her mom became an executive at SunBery Vitamins, she’d been practically living in Hartford. Which meant Sydney and her dad had to fend for themselves. Probably those cobwebs would start to grow their own cobwebs before Sydney’s mom either cleaned them herself or hired a housekeeper.
Sydney would put money on the latter because her mom was barely home enough to sleep in her own bed let alone clean house. And lately, money seemed to be her easy solution.
The Instant Messenger chimed as someone signed in. Sydney lurched forward. It was just Alexia. She was probably checking on her. Sydney gritted her teeth against the frustration. She right-clicked on Drew’s user name and opened a message box.
Syd17: where r u???? call me when u get this…we need to talk.
She closed all the windows on her computer and got up. It was a Saturday morning and she had nowhere to be and no one to be with. That was a first. She hoped Drew would call soon and they could go out to breakfast or something. Well, lunch, now, she thought as she glanced at the clock on her wall.
As she got up to leave her bedroom, she noticed her copy of The Code on her dresser. Alexia had typed the rules up last night and printed out several copies.
“Rule number one: You must not email or IM The Ex ever again,” she read. If she was supposed to be following this thing, she just broke the first rule.
But she and Drew were good at fixing their problems. That’s why they were “The Couple” at Birch Falls High. In high school terms, a two-year relationship was like marriage. They’d probably be voted Most Likely to Grow Old Together for yearbook mock elections. No way had they broken up over some stupid party.
Now, if only Drew would call her so they could fix this problem.
Sydney threw The Breakup Code in the trash. It wasn’t like she really needed it.
Raven heard a soft rapping on her bedroom door. She groaned and opened her eyes, quickly regretting it. It was so bright in her room with the blinds off the windows. When the hell was her dad coming over to hang up the new ones?
It’d been at least three weeks since he’d taken the blinds down, promising to replace them that weekend. But he’d been so flaky lately, focusing on his latest condo development, she’d probably have to hang them herself. Ever since her parents divorced, her dad had been doing things around the house to fix it up. He just wasn’t very good about finishing them.
The knocking came again.
“What?” she croaked, and opened one eye to peek at the door.
Raven’s little sister, Jordan, came in, shutting the door behind her. She was already dressed in jeans and a pink stretchy shirt. Her black hair was curled into perfect ringlets, which she’d pulled back into a ponytail and topped with a pink headband.
“What time is it?” Raven asked, flopping back against the pillow and closing her eyes to the attack of the too-cheery sunshine. Had she slept all day? She’d stayed up late going over the events of the night before in her head while listening to My Chemical Romance on her iPod. She should have been obsessing over the breakup and the scene Caleb made, but no matter how hard she tried, her mind kept wandering to Horace.
And kiss number 2.
“It’s eleven thirty,” Jordan said. “Mom told me to wake you up.”
“If Mom told you to throw away your Milo Ventimiglia collection, would you do it?”
When there was no response, Raven looked over at her sister. Jordan stood at the end of the bed, wringing her fingers.
“Come here.” Raven waved her sister over and Jordan climbed on top of the grape-colored blanket. “I’d fight Mom off with a broom,” Raven said, “if it meant saving your Milo collection.”
Jordan laughed. “Thanks.”
“You still have it hidden?”
“Yeah, in the back of my closet under an old blanket.”
Their mother was against anything pop culture—she said it was a waste of time. Teen magazines were out. MTV and The N were blocked by parental controls, and if she had her way, the Internet would be a foreign word to both girls. But when Raven got into middle school, it became apparent that homework could not be done without some Internet. Of course, there were parental controls on that, too.
So Raven and Jordan hid their forbidden pop culture. Jordan was obsessed with Milo (circa Gilmore Girls, not Heroes). She cut out all his pictures from magazines and put them in a binder. Raven usually bought magazines like Bop and Teen Star for Jordan to devour.
Raven’s secret stash was usually comprised of Spin and Blender. And stuffed beneath her mattress, like a boy’s porn stash, was a poster of Three Days Grace. That Adam…yum.
Yawning, Raven pulled herself into an upright position. “Mom save me anything for breakfast?”
Jordan shook her head. “She didn’t make anything today. I just had granola.”
“Serious?” Raven’s mother was the poster woman for Mom of the Year. She always made breakfast. Always packed their school lunches. Always had the laundry caught up and put away.
“When I got up, she was scrapbooking,” Jordan said. “She’s working on a new design for tonight’s class.”
Well, that explained it. Raven’s mother, while still Mom of the Year, had backed off her mom duties in the last several months since she opened the scrapbooking store/café called Scrappe. Scrapbooking was her life now.
“Well, I gotta go pack. Cindy’s mom is picking me up at noon,” Jordan said.
“Are you staying there tonight?”
Raven got out of bed as Jordan picked up The Breakup Code from the trash. Ignoring the question completely, she turned to Raven and waved the papers in the air. “What’s this?”
“Something Alexia came up with last night.”
Jordan fingered a ringlet with her thumb and index finger. “So, you’re supposed to follow this if someone breaks up with you?”
Raven sighed. “Someone did break up with me.”
Jordan’s mouth hung slack. “Caleb broke up with you?”
Raven hated the sound of those words. Like she was somehow damaged goods. “Yes, he broke up with me and no, I don’t want to talk about it.” Talking about it would mean admitting defeat. Raven had told her little sister just a few weeks ago that she thought Caleb was The One. The one that Raven could fall in love with. The one that liked her for more than popularity and a pretty face. The one that would never leave her like her dad left her mom.
“All right,” Jordan said, “I won’t ask.” She brought the rules closer and read, “Rule number one: You must not email or IM The Ex ever again. Take his name off your email list.” She looked over at Raven. “Did you do that?”
“No.”
“Well, why not? It’s the rule, isn’t it?”
Raven grabbed the papers out of her sister’s hand and threw them back on her desk. “Yes, it’s the rule. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.”
Jordan sat in Raven’s desk chair and shook the mouse so the screen woke from sleep mode. She double-clicked on the Instant Messenger icon on the desktop and Raven’s friend list popped up. “There you go.” Jordan stood up. “Time to ax him.”
Raven hesitated. If she worked really hard at it, she could probably get Caleb to take her back. But did she want him back? Would she want him back because she seriously liked him or because he’d broken up with her and that drove her nuts? Or because she’d failed a relationship and wanted another chance to prove she could make it work?
“Ray?” Jordan raised her brow and cocked her hip out to the side. “Are you going to follow the rules or what?”
Raven plopped down in the computer chair and scrolled through her friends list. She right-clicked on Caleb’s user name and chose the delete option.
Are you sure you want to delete “Calball”?
Raven clicked on YES.
“See ya later, sucker,” Jordan said, snickering.
Standing, Raven put her arm around her little sister’s shoulders and led her out of the room. “You’re really starting to sound too much like me, you know?”
“And what’s so wrong with that?”
Though Jordan was only fourteen, Raven couldn’t help but see herself in her little sister already. She just hoped Jordan didn’t follow her footsteps where relationships were concerned. Because it was a really lame road to travel.