Access Denied (and other eighth grade error messages) (21 page)

“So you know that if you want him,” she said, “Hot Hair is all yours.
He likes
you
like that
.”

“Enough, Reede,” I said. “I have Blake, remember?”

She eyed me carefully. “Not for long, though, right?”

“What?” I turned so she couldn’t see my face. I would not let her predict this relationship like she was predicting everyone
else’s. “Blake is awesome. We’re going out on Saturday.”

“So you still like him?”

I groaned. “Of course I like him,” I said. “I wouldn’t be going out with him if I didn’t, would I?”

“You would if you weren’t sure how
not
to go out with him.”

“You’re crazy,” I said, trying to ignore the way her words settled under my skin, pricking at me. “I feel bad about Kara,”
I said, switching the subject back. “She’s really upset.”

“I know,” Reede said. “But she’ll get over it.”

I shook my head. Sometimes I just didn’t get Reede. Didn’t she care about anyone else’s feelings? As I headed down the aisle,
Mark smiled at me. I gave him a weak smile back and slid into my seat. He tapped me on the back with his pen, but I didn’t
turn around. I was all mixed up inside. Mark wasn’t acting any different toward me. He was always tapping me on the back or
throwing things in my hair. But now that he had broken up with Kara, and I was confused about Blake, it
felt
different and I didn’t know how to act.

I kept my eyes on Mr. Perkins, but I didn’t hear a word he said.

Mr. F was sweeping outside the office when I showed up during lunch.

“Well, if it isn’t Erin P. Swift.” He held out his fist and I knocked it with mine. “Mrs. Foslowski said you were checking
up on me the other day.”

I shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“You don’t have to worry about me, young lady.” He smiled, handing me a dust rag. He wasn’t moving as slowly today, which
made me feel better. I dusted the wood around the receptionist’s window, paying special attention to the corners. I could
feel Mr. F watching me. After a minute or so, his broom brushed the wall near my feet.

“I don’t suppose you came here to dust,” he said.

“Not really,” I said. “But I don’t mind.” I used a broken pen to dig some gunk out of a corner. “It’s just that there’s this
girl.”

“Jilly?”

I sighed. “No, she’s still mad at me. A different girl.”

“Ah,” Mr. F said, brushing dirt into the dustpan.

I turned back to my work. “She was going out with this guy—”

“Mark?”

I ignored him. “So he broke up with her and she thinks he likes this other girl—”

“You?”

“Mr. F!” I smacked the rag on the wall. “Can I please finish my story?”

“Sorry. Go right ahead.”

I could see a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Sometimes Mr. F could be really annoying. But he was so great to talk
to I had to ignore his annoyingness. I started dusting the back of the bench that stood against the wall, sucked in a breath,
and let it out. “So now this girl is mad at this other girl when the other girl didn’t even do anything, you know? And if
he does like the other girl—which I don’t think he does—what is she supposed to do? It isn’t her fault he might like her,
right?”

He looked at me.

“Right?”

“Oh, I’m allowed to speak now?”

I smacked his arm. “Yeah.”

“It isn’t her fault.”

I stopped wiping and looked at him. “Really?”

“Of course not,” Mr. F said. “You can’t help it if someone likes you, Erin.”

“That’s what I tried to tell her but—” My eyes narrowed. “Hey, you tricked me.”

Mr. F laughed. “I did no such thing. I just said what I knew to be true, that’s all.”

“Maybe,” I grumbled. “But it still felt sneaky.” I finished wiping the back of the bench and started on the legs.

Mr. F dumped the contents of the dustpan into the trash.

“I told you I should have been prepared,” I said.

“Would it really have changed anything, Erin?” Mr. F. asked. “Would you have done anything differently?”

I shrugged. “I’ll never know because I wasn’t prepared.”

Mr. F smiled and glanced up at the clock. “Bell’s going to ring. Anything else?”

“No,” I said, handing the dust rag back before knocking my fist against his. “But I may need some Tootsie Pops later.”

*   *   *

Rosie and I found seats way at the back of the bus on the ride home. Jilly didn’t even look at me as she sat down in the row
ahead of us across the aisle, next to a girl who was on her track last year.

“Uh oh,” Jilly said, nudging the girl, “relationship casualty at twelve o’clock.”

Kara climbed on, keeping her gaze down as she sat in the first available seat near the front. She ignored all of the eighth
graders in the back rows.

“I feel bad for her,” Jilly said. “She’s in my algebra class first period and she was a mess.”

“Did she say anything to you?” the girl asked, wide-eyed.

I couldn’t help it; I leaned slightly to my right so I could hear better. Had Kara mentioned our conversation this morning?

“Yeah,” Jilly said. “She wanted to talk after class. I guess since Mark and I were together last year, she thought we might
have some kind of dumped sisterhood or something.”

I glanced up front. Kara sat rigid in her seat, her back straight, her backpack on her knees for easy grabbing when she reached
her stop.

“What did she say?” the girl asked.

“She wanted to know how I handled the breakup,” Jilly said. “Did I try to get him back and stuff.” She sighed. “When I told
her the breakup was mutual and I didn’t want to get back together with him, she just shut up.” She shook her head. “Then I
told her that I knew it must be really hard for her, even though I had never been dumped before so I wasn’t speaking from
personal experience—” Rosie smiled and nudged me before flipping through her playlist—“Well, I didn’t say that part because
that would have been mean but, you know. I can imagine how it would feel. I imagine it all the time with my boyfriend, Jon.”

Several minutes later, the bus screeched to a stop and we all jerked forward. I watched Kara stand up, heave her backpack
over her shoulder, and step off without a backward glance. I felt bad for her, even though a teeny tiny part of me was happy.
Weird.

“Do you think she’ll be okay?” the girl asked Jilly.

“It will take awhile,” Jilly said. “She is really in love with Mark. I just hope he doesn’t start going out with someone else
right away. That would be really bad.” She glanced briefly in my direction, then turned to face front. What was that about?

I turned to Rosie, who shook her head. “It’ll work out.”

“What will work out?” I asked.

“It,” she said as she leaned back and closed her eyes, her head nodding slightly to the music.