At the end of school, because I wasn’t ready to go home yet, I made a call to Dad to let him know I would be with my friends again. If it got too late, I would just sleep over. Everything I needed, I could just ask Veronica to give me, so there would be no problem with school, even if I didn’t carry any change of clothes with me.For the whole day, I’d managed to avoid Zach. Even if I could avoid it at home, it would feel too damn awkward to know we were in the same house, with only two doors and a short walk separating us. After that kiss this morning, I needed way more distance than that.I walked into my friend Veronica’s room, with her and Serena following me inside. I kicked off my shoes, sat cross-legged on her bed, and grabbed onto one of her large pillows and hugged it to my chest. Serena chose to sit on the chair at the desk, while Veronica joined me on the bed. Both of them were facing me, their expressions arranged into expectant looks.“What?” I grumbled, hiding the lower

This isn’t working.I’d given it a hard try, but I couldn’t get myself to focus. I was in my room, and I was trying to study, or had been for the past hour or so, but I hadn't moved past the page I’d started on. After an hour I still couldn’t say what was on the page without looking again, though I’d started reading it several times already.Tests were coming up in school soon, and I’d been too busy fooling around with Zach recently to pay attention to my studies. If Serena hadn't reminded me, I would have let Zach fill my thoughts and I’d have forgotten about the tests altogether. I didn’t plan on going to college as long as I could get the bakery profitable again, anyway. There was no reason to study so hard, but Dad would be so disappointed if my grades were too low, so I had to put in some effort.Zach just refused to leave me alone, even when it was just in my thoughts.I got embarrassed every time I thought about what happened between us when we were alone, but the trouble was t

Zach didn’t come home.I wasn’t home early, either, because I went to my friend’s place after school for a while, but I got back before Dad and Stepmom arrived, and I thought we could put our heads together and put more thought into the competition. I wasn’t entertaining other, less innocent thoughts, or I at least tried not to.After half an hour of waiting, I gave him a call. He picked up on the second ring.“What’s up?”“I’m alone at home, when do you think you can get here? I was looking a little more into the competition and some possible recipes we could try. It’ll be a bit costly, but if we can, we should decide on something and practice it a bit once, would that be okay?”He sighed. “I left for home ages ago. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about too, but my aunt is sick, and Mom has her phone off because she’s at work. I had to go see her, I’m sorry.”“Oh,” I murmured, shoulders slumped in disappointment. “How long do you think you’ll take?”“I don’t know; she’s not

When I got home, I headed straight for my room. I got changed out of the nice dress, wiped my face clean of make-up, though I hadn't used much, to begin with. I changed into comfortable clothes I could sleep in, then laid down on the bed. Not to sleep, though. I was too agitated to fall asleep. Instead, I picked up my phone and made a call.“Hello, Jade?”I sighed. “Serena.”“What happened? Did you meet Zach when you got home? Did you guys talk?”“We didn’t,” I muttered. “I couldn’t even look at him.”I was still mad. Mostly, though, I was worried about what was going to happen now. If I had to, I could deal with what happened at school, but if it spread to the teachers, then our parents could get called in, and that would just make everything that much more complicated. I hated complicated things.“Honestly, I don’t even know what to say to him, because none of it will matter. The truth is out already, and everyone is talking about it now. There’s no way to reverse that.”“Of course,

I walked into school and immediately noticed the difference. Before, people had been trying, unsuccessfully, to hide that I was the center of their attention. Today, they stared openly, and I instinctively hunched my shoulders, as if that could help me hide.Crap. What am I supposed to do?I looked around but didn’t see either one of my friends. It was still a bit early, and classes didn’t start for another thirty minutes, at least. Where could I hide out until then?“Jade!”I froze in my steps, and my heart thumped hard. I realized a second later that I knew the voice and knew there was no reason for me to be afraid. Serena appeared at my side before I could turn around.“Jade, what’s wrong?” She asked and stood close, as if to protect me.“Can't you tell?” Veronica said, coming up to us. “Everyone is looking this way and staring at her like she’s got the plague or something. I guess everyone’s heard the rumor by now, and everyone believes it.”“Can we get out of here?” I murmured, I