How to Get Rid of Your Ex Girlfriend

After Tyler paid we left in a hurry. He turned to me as soon as we exited the shop, laughing. “You know, I wasn’t going to call her anyway…”

“Hm.” I nodded, mind elsewhere. Something in the way his hazel eyes were sparkling made the breath catch in my chest. I couldn’t stop watching them.

He grinned up at me. “You’re turning into quite the possessive boyfriend, aren’t you? You must really like me.”

I laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Adams. I only said you were my boyfriend because bitchy cheerleaders annoy me.” As we walked down the row of shops, I reached over and took our bag. “I’ll carry that, you have a lot already.”

“No I don’t. And your bookbag looks really heavy, you shouldn’t be carrying anything else. Haven’t you ever heard of lockers?”

Shrugging, I replied, “So is yours. Just let me carry this, it’s feather light.”

He was grinning widely now, as though I’d made his day. I was completely perplexed. And they say girls are the complicated ones…

º º º

“1…37…22…” I muttered, twisting the dial on my locker and watching the little white numbers whirl by. If only the world could be as simple as a locker combination, if only everything could fit together and click into place just like that…

Great. Now I’m starting to sound plain depressing.

Happy thoughts…think happy thoughts…the world’s complexity makes everything more interesting, doesn’t it? But that’s just as pessimistic because interesting can be bad or good. Or just confusing.

It was then that I spotted a neatly folded post it note sitting atop the mound of books, pencils, garbage, and various objects inhabiting my locker. I only noticed it because it was bright pink.

Okay. Definitely from a girl.

In my school, it was popular custom to send your friends, enemies, and crushes notes by slipping them through the slots in the locker door. Sometimes they were anonymous, sometimes signed. If they were signed, a response was usually expected, especially if you were good friends with the person who sent it. If unsigned, or signed with some sort of riddle or initials, you would try to figure out who sent it, or just ignore it if you felt like doing that instead. Locker numbers were like telephone numbers in my school, and were much safer to use for messaging because no one could hack them or see what you’d written, like on Facebook, phones, and AIM.

This particular note was written in big, bubbly handwriting that looked so perfectly scaled and spaced it could be a computer font. In my head, this confirmed the idea that the sender was a girl.

On it was written a simple line from Romeo and Juliet.

For you and I are past our dancing days.

It wasn’t a particularly important line, nor was it even spoken by Romeo or Juliet. But outside the context of the play, it could mean…anything.

Only I knew who this was from and exactly what it meant.

It was from the girl I was crushing on. Sadie Anderson, a pretty redhead l who sits next to me in English. She loves Shakespeare, and now that I think about it, I’ve had my eyes on her for ages. “For you and I are past our dancing days” must have meant that we were past our days of just being acquaintances, that we should be more than that. She must feel the same way about me…

“It’s Sadie,” I whispered excitedly as I slid into the seat next to Tyler, dropping my Spanish books on the desk with a thump. “THAT’S who I’m crushing on. She left a note in my locker and I just kind of…realized.”

“Are you sure?” was all he said, then turned back to the lesson.

I was surprised by the shortness in his voice. Was he angry with me again? “Adams…?”

“Maybe if you started paying attention you wouldn’t be failing,” he snapped, eyes fixed firmly on Mr. Perez and jaw tight.

I recoiled as though his words were a punch. They FELT like one.

When the bell rang, I left quickly and stopped at my locker before World History to grab my textbook. Since I wasn’t allowed to sit next to him during that class, I took the one next to Lena.

She smiled at me. “So how’s life? I haven’t seen you since Friday.” Her smile shifted to a wicked grin. “What did you and Tyler do over the weekend?”

“Nothing, really,” I said truthfully. We’d done what we always did. Joked around, played video games, watched bad movies, acted like idiots. We did all the random things that best friends are inclined to do when they’ve got a whole weekend to waste.

She raised her eyebrows. “He was positively glowing this morning.”

“Huh. Wonder why…”

“But now,” Lena said, eyes flicking over to Tyler, “he looks like he wants to die. What in the world did you do?”

“What makes you think I did anything?” I shot back indignantly.

She opened her mouth to respond, but then closed it again, because our teacher had just walked into the room. Lena is a model student. She would never dare talk while class was in session.

One lecture on the Middle East later, we resumed our conversation in the hallway.

“Because he tries not to look at you, and every time he does anyway he grits his teeth and looks like he wants to cry. Or scream. Or just go hide somewhere,” Lena said instantly, as though no time had passed. I was surprised she’d remembered my question, but then again, she did have a superior intellect.

“And you can tell all that just by watching him?” I looked at her incredulously.

“Any girl could. We know emotions well.”

I snorted. “But you don’t deal with them well.”

“Don’t be sexist. By the looks of you and Tyler, boys have their drama too.”

“Only ‘cause we’re gay.” I winked at her as I strode off, heading for my locker. Another one of Sadie’s notes was there when I opened it.

Is there no pity sitting in the clouds
That sees into the bottom of my grief?

Oh, so we were doing random lines now? Well, this sounded like fun…

I flipped over the note and scribbled a response, the first words that came to my head – Romeo’s lines from when he first sees Juliet at the Capulet ball.

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight!
For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

Leaving it stuck to the outside of my locker since I wasn’t sure what her number was, I walked off to lunch with a smile on my face.