The Secret Recipe for Moving On by Karen Bischer (ebook reader for manga txt) 📕

back pegs of the bike, hands resting on Luke’s shoulders. When she steps off and pushes back her hood, revealing her thick blonde braids, I realize it’s his girlfriend, Greta O’Brien. She’s a senior and, from what I hear, she’s a really good snowboarder, but she kind of scares the hell out of me. She’s tall and imposing and loud, one of those girls who gets all “What are you looking at?” if you happen to glance her way. She’s always “playfully” pushing her friends or bellowing with laughter. She reminds me a bit of a Viking woman. But from a distance today, she looks kind of innocent in her yellow slicker and braids, like an oversized kindergartener.

Luke and Greta appear to be heavy into a discussion, maybe even fighting. Part of me knows I should look away and not be nosy, but it’s somehow comforting to know that even couples who are still together aren’t all sunshine and rainbows. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but Luke is making some really intense gestures with his hands, as if he’s trying to explain something to Greta. She shrugs and raises her hands up as if to say “What do you want me to do?” and Luke’s shoulders sag.

Greta walks away, and Luke remains behind for a moment, lifting his baseball cap and smoothing his hand over the top of his shaggy light-brown hair. It almost makes me laugh because his T-shirt is beyond wrinkled, but it’s his hair he’s worried about.

This makes me think of Hunter and how his hair always does what he wants it to do. It’s thick and comes down a little past his ears, and he recently got it cut in a way where he has a bit of a coif going on. Like, it appears floppy and wild, but it’s actually styled.

I’m glad I don’t have to pretend that I find the hair cute anymore, because it seriously kind of makes him look like a douche.

Ugh. I press my forehead on the steering wheel. This is not going to work, this whole tilt-a-whirl-of-feelings thing going on inside me. How can I get through an entire day while at once loving and loathing my all-too-recent ex-boyfriend?

Then I remember I have to see him in home ec, and the anger bubbles up again. There’s no way I’m letting him think his cruelty and lack of response to my text has gotten to me. With that, I get out of the car and head inside.

As soon as I step into the main hall, I see Brynn walking toward her homeroom, and my heart speeds up. I know this will be a test, if she acknowledges me. I’m thinking of saying something neutral, like asking if I can give her the globe at the end of the day, but she completely avoids eye contact. Maybe she’s afraid I’m going to put her in the middle of this, but I wasn’t even going to ask her about Hunter. I was just hoping she’d say hello if I said it first.

I purposely swing by the cafeteria, where I know Kim and Alisha will be sitting. I don’t see Kim, but Alisha is at a table talking to a bunch of RHHS TV people. She’s laughing, so I head toward her first, since she seems the most approachable. She makes eye contact almost immediately, then drops it, then looks me in the eyes again. “Hi, Ellie,” she says, her face pained.

Oh god, please don’t let Alisha be weird around me. “Hey,” I say, and I realize all her TV station friends are watching me.

“Have you been on The Buzz today?” Alisha asks, lowering her voice.

I shake my head. The Buzz is an RHHS gossip site with a lot of “blind items” about students, paired with complementary photos or GIFs for each. Jared Curtis, one of the guys from my home ec class in the hipster/literary journal group, is rumored to run it, but that’s all I really know about it. I don’t know anyone well enough to decode all the “this popular basketball player was recently found ‘courting’ a teammate’s mom” type things, so I’m not exactly checking it twenty times a day like other kids.

“Well, it alludes to Hunter dumping you because of—”

That’s when Kim brushes by. “Come on, Alisha, we need to get to homeroom.”

“In a minute,” Alisha says, flustered.

“We need to talk to Mr. Carpenter about the Key Club meeting.” Kim won’t even glance in my direction.

Without another word, she links arms with Alisha and steers her away from me without so much as a goodbye.

They’re siding with Hunter. So that’s how it’s going to be.

Fresh tears begin to burn my eyes, but I blink them back as I pull out my phone. It’s so old that it doesn’t hold a charge for very long, but I decide to risk it by loading up The Buzz.

I scroll past items about a beach house that got trashed by some soccer players over the summer and a sophomore who is considering breast implants, and sure enough, the third post has a GIF of a crying Dory from Finding Nemo.

CAN’T BAIT THE HOOK

These two geeks are no longer enjoying a harmonious union, as one party was said to be a cold fish …

Cold. Fish. The words swim around as the tears start to blind me. The whole school is going to think I’m a prude who won’t have sex with her boyfriend of eight months. It’s Robot Girl all over again. I’m probably going to get harassed about this until graduation.

And it means Hunter probably told someone he was tired of me not sleeping with him.

But then I notice there’s more.

… Sources say, however, that a planned sex outing was on the horizon. Perhaps destiny got in the way?

I squint at that last line, making the tears spill over. What does it even mean? Is Jared saying it’s my destiny to be a virgin forever or something since I couldn’t close the