Ethan

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SUBJECT: TODAY’S RIDE.

Dear Ethan,

I won’t need a ride home after school today. I’m getting a ride with my new boyfriend.

Forget you,

Rachel

PS—I didn’t vote for you for Mr. Popular.

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SUBJECT: RE: TODAY’S Ride.

Dear Rachel,

Seeing as today is April Fool’s Day, I’m not sure whether to take this joke of an email seriously or not. I’ll wait for you at the car for five minutes.

If you’re not there by then, I’m leaving.

Forget You,

Ethan

PS—Thanks for letting me know. The teachers were wondering who cast the lone ballot in the other guy’s box...

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RACHEL NEVER SHOWED up to my car, so I assumed she wasn’t lying about having a boyfriend. I was also sure it wouldn’t last too long. The first two guys she’d attempted to date dumped her because she refused to “dress like all the other girls” whenever they hung out, and she refused to comb the mop that she called her hair more than three times a week.

Heading home, I went upstairs to my room and texted my newest girlfriend, Chelsea.

Me: Hey. What are you up to?

Chelsea: Getting my nails done with Sarah. (Ugh. Her new hair is so gross) What’s up?

Me: I was wondering if you wanted to come over and watch the new horror series tonight.

Chelsea: LOL No. I’d rather you take me to dinner...Can you come pick me up in a few hours?

I didn’t text her back. We’d only been dating for a few weeks, and all she ever wanted to do was go to dinner (spend my allowance money), and gossip about her friends. She never did anything that I wanted to do, and I’d already told her that horror series and movies were a big deal to me.

Her response? “Aren’t horror movies whack?”

I took out my notebook and started writing a plan to dump her next week.

I was tempted to go next door and ask Rachel if she was going to watch the horror series tonight, but when I looked up, I saw Glen Easton through her window.

He was sitting at her desk, giving her a smile I’d seen him give to tons of other girls at our school before.

Even though Rachel was lame as hell, she could do better—way better, than Glen Easton.

Last week, he’d bragged to all the guys in gym class about how he’d fucked Taylor Redding and how he was going to “bang another virgin this month.”

I highly doubted Rachel had ever had sex. She still rolled her eyes whenever I begrudgingly told her about my escapades (only because my guy friends weren’t available), and even though I hated her, I didn’t think Glen should be her first.

Her second? Maybe.

Her first? Not a chance.

I made sure my blinds were completely closed and decided I wouldn’t say anything unless I thought Rachel would try to go all the way.

I watched Glen run his fingers through her hair. She laughed as he tried to touch her, and I finally accepted that she would forever be lame, until she leaned forward and kissed him.

Glen slid his hands under her shirt as he caressed her chest, and she was smiling against his mouth.

I suddenly felt angry and I wasn’t sure why. I didn’t want Rachel—at all, so I figured that the feeling in my chest was anger from Rachel showing my mom where Brody had hid his cigarettes in my room last week.

It’s definitely that...

I spotted her mother’s car in the driveway and decided to do what any “concerned” friend would do.

Me: Hello, Mrs. Dawson. I’m across the street and I heard a loud scream coming from Rachel’s room. Is she okay? I know she has those stomach pains every month...

Mrs. Dawson: Such a good neighbor, Ethan! I’ll go upstairs and check on her. Thanks!

It took all of ten seconds for me to hear the aftermath. Rachel’s mom had the loudest set of lungs on the block, and I didn’t have to lean against my window to hear every single word.

“Sneaking a boy into your room, Rachel Marie Dawson? Are you out of your mind! You are grounded! Indefinitely!”

A part of me almost felt bad for snitching.

Until I saw her mom pulling a pack of condoms from a drawer.

She was really going to have sex with him?

Her mom’s yelling went on for two hours, and it was so harsh and brutal that it made me never want to sneak another girl into my room...

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LATER THAT NIGHT, RACHEL glared at me from her window—holding up “Fuck You, Ethan!” on her whiteboard each time I happened to look her way.

I was about to ask why she couldn’t just turn on her TV for the horror series and leave me alone, but I noticed her flat screen was gone. That her mother had taken it in the grounding aftermath.

Sighing, I let up my window and pushed my TV as close to the edge as possible.

Rachel looked up from her desk—still glaring at me, but a faint smile crossed her lips. I turned up the volume as high as it could go and watched as she picked up the paper cup that was on her side of our makeshift phone line from years ago.

“Ethan?” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Can you tilt the screen a little bit more?”

I obliged, pushing it out a bit further.

“Thank you.” She opened a bag of chips. “Oh, and Ethan?”

“Yeah?”

“I fucking hate you.”