Page 90 of Zach
some romance movie.Did he?
“Seriously? You’re going to play dumb?” I stare at her, mouth open, considering doing just that.
“You don’t have to tell me anything, but if you want to talk, I’m here.” Want to talk? Do I ever? Maybe
I do, but I don’t have any practice with any of this.
“I don’t know how,” I mumble, crossing my arms over my chest and staring out the window.
“Don’t know how to what?”
“Talk,” I shout, then shoot her an apologetic smile. “I haven’t had…friends. I don’t really know
how to do this.”
“Oh, right,” she says softly, glancing at me briefly, then back at the road. Her blonde hair is in a
ponytail like usual, but little wisps of hair are fluttering around her face. She looks sweaty and happy.
Two things I didn’t think could go together.
“Well, if you’re new to this, there are a few things you should know. First,” she raises her
forefinger off the steering wheel, “Girl Code.”
“Girl code,” I echo.
“Yep. When we’re talking about boys, girl code says there is a cone of silence. I’m on your side,
and what you say will never make it back to Zach. So if you want to complain, or talk it out, or
whatever, you can do that. I’ll keep my mouth shut, I swear.”
“That…that might be good. The talk it out part.” I wet my lips, unsure how to start. “I think…we
just kissed in there. In front of Becca and Nick.” I press my hands against my cheeks, trying to cool
them. Bree’s quick inhale echoes how I feel. “I know, right? It’s crazy. It’s certifiable. I have no idea
why I did it.”
“So you kissed him?”
“Um. Yes and no. I mean, I pressed my mouth against his. It’s this whole thing. We fell over and
whoops, our mouths touched.”
“Oh, ok,” she says, lips twitching. “So it was an accident.”
I push at a cuticle on my bare nails. “Well, yes. But then no.”
Bree dissolves into laughter, then, glancing in her mirror, swings into a random parking lot and
turns off the ignition. Dropping her hands in her lap, she turns to me and asks through her giggles. “So,
it was an accident, then it wasn’t?”
“Well, yeah,” I say, then proceed to explain the past few minutes in vivid detail. It’s so completely
