Page 8 of Noticing Natalie
“Because he’s smart. You’ve heard him. He’s going to Georgia Tech next fall. He’s already been accepted. He’s going to be an engineer, and I bet he’s going to be rich.That’swhy I’m with him.”
I felt like I’d been stabbed right in the heart. Her words literally took my breath away. How long had this shit been going on? Paulie wasn’t even the first guy she’d cheated with? And what about Paulie’s longtime girlfriend Jayne? She was one of Annika’s supposed best friends. She’d gone on a beach trip with her family, and it seemed that as soon as she was gone Annika moved in on her man.
I thought about Nat trying to warn me that Annika wasn’t nice and sweet like I thought she was. And that she was cheating on me with half the school. I shook my head. She’d been right all along, and I’d been mad at her for saying it.
I was a goddamn fool.
I stood and stared at them as they tried to make themselves presentable. When they turned and saw me, Paulie looked horrified. Annika? Not so much. She ran to me smiling.
“Babe! There you are. I’m so glad you’re here. Paulie was helping me find my shoe.”
That was the lamest excuse I’d ever heard.
I snorted. “You somehow lost your shoe by the back alley dumpsters of the Mexican restaurant?”
“Well… yes.” Her blue eyes were open wide and staring up at me with zero guile. She was un-fucking-believable.
“Cut the crap. I saw y’all. You were going at it, and from the looks of things it wasn’t the first time.”
Paulie went white as a sheet, but Annika just pouted. “Oh, come on, Tim. We’re in high school. It’s hard to be faithful with so many options around, you know?”
“What the fuck, Annika? You said you loved me.” I was dangerously close to crying, which would be about the worst thing I could do right now.
“I do love you! I just like to… try things with other people.” She shrugged like it was no big deal.
“Man, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have touched your girl. It’s just… well, she and I have had kind of a thing for a while now,” he admitted.
“How long?” I could feel my heart breaking into a million pieces.
“Don’t.” Annika put a hand on his arm and shook her head at him.
He shook her off. “A couple of years.”
I was speechless for a moment. I stared between the two of them. Two years. We’d been together for four. So, half of that time she’d been lying to me. And one of my best friends had been, too.
Annika tried to come over and hug me, but I stepped away from her. “Don’t touch me,” I hissed at her.
She frowned, her pretty face turning to a calculating expression I’d never seen before. “It stops now,” she said firmly. “I swear. From now on, it’s just you and me.”
I laughed without humor and rubbed the back of my neck. “It’s a bit late for that, considering I thought it had been just you and me since we were fourteen years old.” I shook my head. “What about Jayne?”
Paulie looked like the one about to cry now. “Don’t tell her. Please don’t tell her. It will crush her.”
I sneered at him. “She deserves so much better than you. You know that, right? Than both of you.” I turned to Annika. “Some friend you are.”
“Jayne doesn’t want to sleep with anyone yet. Can you imagine how that makes poor Paulie feel?” She rubbed his arm. “You know guys have needs. I’m taking care of that for her so he won’t break up with her.”
“You’d break up with her because she’s not ready to fuck you?” I stared at Paulie. I’d been friends with him since we’d been on the same T-ball team in second grade. He had changed sometime over the past couple of years without me noticing.
Paulie shrugged. “I gotta have sex, man. You know how that goes. Annika’s kind of doing me and Jayne a favor, you know?”
I was disgusted. “The two of you deserve each other.” I looked at Annika. “We’re over. I never want to talk to you again.” I turned to walk away from them but thought better of it. “And I’ll be letting Jayne know just how ‘helpful’ your little arrangement is for her.”
Both of them freaked out, begging me not to tell Jayne. I just shook my head as I walked away.
“If you walk away from me,” Annika shouted after me, “you won’t have any friends left at school. It’ll just be you and that nerdy little ugly girl you hang out with all the time.”
I turned. “Are you kidding? I didn’t make friends through you. I’ve had the same friends my entire life. You moved here in eighth grade. All of these people aremyfriends not yours. And don’t ever talk about Nat like that again. She’s not ugly, and she’s a hundred times better person than you are.”
