Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend

I’m trying to figure out who the savior-complex girlfriend is and
why she needs help when I’m lifted straight out of the pool and set
down—dripping wet, mascara running, silk T-shirt and white capris
probably see-through—on the deck. The warm hands feel familiar
on my arms, and I know who it is instantly. But even though I’ve been
waiting an entire summer to see him again, it still takes me a second
before I can look up into the beautiful, furious face of Jamie Forta.

“The familiar story of smart girl meets bad boy
is enhanced by Rose’s intelligent and authentic voice.”
—
Kirkus Reviews

“Louise Rozett creates the perfect read—one full of teenage angst,
drama, loss and young love. I adored everything about
Confessions of an Angry Girl
and you simply have to read it!”
—Donna at
Book Passion for Life
blog

“I felt it tackled some very real issues
and Rozett did an amazing job portraying them realistically.
Nothing is dumbed down here or glossed over.”
—
Charlotte’s Reviews

“Funny, emotional and angst-y,
Confessions of an Angry Girl
is a fantastic story!”
—Nereyda at
Mostly YA Book Obsessed
blog

“Rose’s journey through grief and trying to acclimate to high school
was both humorous and heartbreaking. She is the kind of character
you want to champion because she’s strong, makes good choices
and she isn’t afraid to stand up for what’s right.”
—
Jenuine Cupcakes
blog

For Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi
and young people everywhere
who are just trying to be who they are

“JUMP, FAGGOT! JUMP!”
And just like that, summer is over.
Symbolically, anyway.
I’ve been at this party for sixty seconds and already the tyranny of the swim thugs is so suffocating, it’s like I never even
had summer break to detox from freshman year.

Not that summer can really be considered a break when you
spend the whole thing either folding clothes at the Gap or in therapy. With your mother. Talking about how you had every right to
go behind her back and build a memorial website for your dad.

Who’s dead.
Obviously. Hence,
memorial.
“Come on, homo! Let’s go!”
Mike Darren’s backyard is packed with students from every

level of Union High’s caste system, but it’s obvious that this is a
swim-team-initiation party. As Mike struts around checking the
beer level of the bottomless red plastic cups that were given only
to the prettiest freshman girls when they skittered through the
tiki-torch gauntlet, Matt Hallis and the rest of the swim thugs
are lined up on the edge of the pool like a firing squad. A freshman swimmer dressed in a red polo shirt, rolled-up white jeans
and loafers with no socks stands on the diving board, backing away from them, inching closer and closer to the end while
looking down at the water every other second. Matt ceremoniously raises his arm in the air and then shows off those leadership qualities that got him elected swim captain even though
he’s just a sophomore: he fires the first shot, hurling his cup of
beer at the freshman.

Thanks to the fact that Matt is an annoyingly talented athlete whose parents paid for him to spend the whole summer in
a weight room, it’s a perfect throw with a ridiculous amount of
force behind it. The beer splatters on the freshman’s blond head,
the impact nearly knocking him backward as liquid pours down
his cheeks, nose and neck, drenching his perfectly pressed shirt.
His legs shake a little with the force of the blow and he jostles
the diving board. For a second I think he’s going to fall—loafers
and all—into the kidney-shaped pool with blue floodlights shimmering just beneath the waterline. He throws his arms out to
the sides and steadies himself, and I can tell by the relieved expression on his face that he thinks he survived, that the hazing
wasn’t so bad after all.

He slowly lowers his arms and takes a defiant step toward
the firing squad. The relief on his face disappears as Matt’s underlings lift their cups in the air to follow their leader’s example.

“Jump or die, fag!” yells Matt, his drunken slurring making
his speech sound even less intelligent than usual, which is hard
to do. The cups nail the freshman like a spray of bullets, and he
staggers backward, arms pinwheeling as he tries to cope with
the beer in his eyes and mouth. He missteps and falls into the
water on his back. The thugs cheer as loafers pop up and float
on the pool’s surface.
Ironically, “Take it Off” by Ke$ha starts playing.
“What are we
doing
here?” Tracy asks next to me as she watches

her ex-boyfriend parade around collecting high fives. It occurs
to me that this is exactly the kind of party that Matt spent time
at last summer, before freshman year, which is probably what
turned him from the nice guy he was in eighth grade to the total
jerk he is now.

I look at my best friend. A year ago, all she could talk about
was how she couldn’t wait to be at parties like this in her cheerleading uniform with her swimmer boyfriend. Now, she’s dressed
like a normal person—well, a very fashionable normal person—
and she can’t remember why she wanted to be here in the first
place.

I’m so proud of her.
“‘We are putting in an appearance at the biggest party of the
summer so we can start sophomore year on Tuesday with our
heads held high,’” I say, quoting her.
“What a dumb idea,” she replies.
The freshman hauls himself out of the pool with no help from
anyone. He is shivering a little in his soaked clothes, probably
trying to figure out whether he should fight back, leave or grab
some beer and pretend everything is cool. There’s a radius around
him of about 10 feet, as if being the swim thugs’ target of choice
is a communicable disease. He takes a towel off a wicker stand
and tries to dry his shirt.
“He picked the wrong team—in more ways than one,” Tracy
says. “Not that being gay is a choice,” she quickly adds, repeating what our health teacher from last year, Ms. Maso, drilled
into us, even though she probably could have gotten fired for
stating as fact what some people think is just a belief about homosexuality. As far as we can tell, Ms. Maso’s the only teacher
at Union High who is actually interested in giving kids useful—
akatruthful—information.
Matt stumbles over to kiss Lena, the new captain of the cheerleading team who he had sex with a lot last year while claiming he was a virgin in order to get Tracy—his girlfriend at the
time—to sleep with him.
Which, eventually, she did.
I glance at Tracy to see if she cares that Matt and Lena are
making out in front of half of Union, but she’s not looking at
them. She’s watching the freshman as he leans over the water
with one of those long-handled nets for cleaning the pool. He
nabs his shoes and lifts them, dripping, out of the water. “The
chlorine is going to totally trash that leather. God, those look
like Gucci, don’t they?”
I’m about to remind my fashionista friend that I wouldn’t
know a Gucci loafer from a loaf of bread when suddenly Kristin is
standing right in front of us. In her uniform. With her pom-poms.
“Tracy! You can’t quit! We can’t do it without you!” she shrieks.
Or actually, screeches. Kristin, the only freshman to make “The
Squad” last year besides Tracy, has a voice straight out of a nightmare. In fact, at Tracy’s big Halloween cheer party, she dressed
up as some sort of weird demon fairy, with creepy little wings
sprouting from her back. It really suited her.
“Now that Regina’s off the squad for good…” Kristin trails off,
her eyes finding their way to me as if it’s my fault that Regina Deladdo made my life a living hell last year and then got kicked off
the squad, even though she was supposed to be the new captain.
I wonder if being captain was going to be the pinnacle of Regina Deladdo’s high school career. Or maybe her whole life. I try
to muster up sympathy for her but I can’t. It’s hard to feel anything other than deep dislike for someone who spent half the
year writing
911 Bitch
on all my desks and lockers after I sort of
blew the whistle on a homecoming after-party.
Regina should have written
Boyfriend Stealer
instead, since
that’s what she was really mad at me for. Not that I stole her boyfriend. All I did was like him. And it sort of seemed, for a minute there, that he liked me, too.
But that was just me, being an idiot. Because Jamie Forta does
not like me.
How do I know? Two ways. 1: I haven’t seen or spoken to
him all summer—not since Regina got him arrested right before
he was supposed to pick me up for his junior prom. The last I
heard from Jamie Forta was a note, delivered by his best friend
Angelo, that said,
Rose. Like I said. I am not right for you. I’m different. Believe me. Be good.
Whatever that means.
2: Jamie only became my friend because my brother Peter
asked him to. Peter was worried about me when he left for
college—or actually, maybe it was my mother he was worried
about. Anyway, Peter wanted someone to “keep an eye” on me.
Which Jamie did.
And then…there was some kissing.
But he’s not my boyfriend. I think his note made that pretty
clear.
So, what
is
a guy who broke up with somebody else and asked
you to the prom? Who spent a whole year looking out for you?
Who gave you the best first kiss in the history of kissing?
I can see every second of that kiss like I’m watching a movie.
It happened in the parking lot during homecoming. He was at
the dance with Regina. I was there with Robert. But still, somehow, Jamie and I ended up sitting in a car together. And then he
kissed me. This junior I’ve had a crush on since the first time I
saw him play hockey when I was in seventh grade.
It was surreal.
It was also the only good thing that had happened to me since
my dad died right before I started at Union High.
I miss Jamie. I missed him all summer, even though I tried
not to. What’s the point in missing someone who tells you flat
out that he’s not right for you?
“This year?” Kristin is saying to Tracy, looking a little manic,
like if she doesn’t lock Tracy down, the world as she knows it
is going to implode. “We want you to be our choreographer!
Wouldn’t that be perfect? I mean, look, last year was kind of
lame. But we’re actually going to
dance
this year, with totally
hot moves.”
Kristin says this as if choreography is a novel concept for a
cheerleading team.
“You don’t need me,” Tracy says. “It’s not like we’re a competition team. Even with a choreographer, we’ll still just be bouncing around in bad polyester blend.”
Kristin scowls, looking seriously offended by the idea that her
cheers are just
bouncing around.
“What’s the problem, Trace? Is it that Lena’s with Matt? Because they’re just hooking up. It’s not like she’s his ‘girlfriend
with a capital
G.’
” Kristin uses her pom-poms to make little air
quotes as she says this, and I consider grabbing them and throwing them in the pool.
I wonder if I actually made a move to do it because Tracy
shoots me a look. Tracy has had a lot of talks with me about my
anti-cheerleader stance, reminding me that not all cheerleaders
are like Regina, citing herself and a bunch of other nice, smart
girls on last year’s team as examples. While I see her point, I
still haven’t managed to let go of the idea that, in general, cheerleaders suck.
I recognize that this viewpoint may be indicative of a character flaw on my part, and I’m okay with that.
In a fake, buttery voice, Kristin says, “Trace, let’s go talk in
private for a sec, ’kay? Official business,” she barks at me as she
threads her arm through Tracy’s. Tracy looks at me and rolls her
eyes as Kristin yanks her toward the patio, her thick blond ponytail swaying with determination. My hand automatically goes
to my hair, which is doing what it always does—hanging limply
around my shoulders, straight and thin and mousy brown.
I take out the hand-me-down iPhone that Peter gave me before
he went back to Tufts, even though I know I have no messages
because the only person who has ever called or texted me since
I’ve had it is Tracy. And my mother, of course. But if there’s one
thing I’ve learned about these phones, it’s that they can make
you look busy when you have absolutely nothing to do.
Normally, when I’m trying to look busy, I click on my vocab
app and study for the PSAT, which is six weeks away. This year
is just a practice run, but I need to totally rock it so I can show
my mother that I’ll be able to get scholarships and go to college
even if she never sees the insurance money my dad’s company
promised and somehow hasn’t managed to deliver yet. But the
idea of getting busted studying for the PSATs at a party is kind
of horrifying, so I click on “Photos” instead and continue my
project—deleting all the pictures Peter left on the phone when
he gave it to me.
At first I was annoyed that my mother insisted Peter give me
his old iPhone—which looked like it had been drop-kicked multiple times—rather than letting me get a new one with my own
money. But when I synced the phone to my laptop for the first
time and the computer asked if I wanted to erase everything on
it, I realized that Peter’s phone contained all sorts of information
about his life that he had stopped sharing with me the minute
he set foot on a college campus and got a girlfriend.
There are over 800 photos on his phone, and my plan is to
look at every single one before I make room for mine. I’m hoping it’ll give me an idea of just how bad things are with him. So
far, I’ve learned that he smokes and drinks a lot, and takes pictures of his friends smoking and drinking a lot. No surprises
there, I guess.
I get through ten pictures of Peter’s friends having a much
better time at a party than I currently am. Then I look up, see
people talking to other human beings, feel like a dumbass and
decide to go find something to drink.
I push past the freshman girls huddled together for safety as
the swim thugs circle like sharks, and find my way to a cooler
that’s filled with all sorts of things we’re not allowed to drink
yet, and soda. It takes me a full minute to find a Diet Coke buried under all the ice. I can barely feel my hand when I pull it
back out.
“Wouldn’t you rather have some Red Bull and vodka, Rose?”
It takes me a second to recognize Robert, probably because
he looks happier than I have ever seen him look in four years.
It could also be because he let his hair grow long and he seems
somehow…cooler. Or maybe it’s just because he has his arm
around one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen, and she’s smiling. At him. Like he’s a god.
“Holly, this is Rose Zarelli. Rose, meet Holly Taylor. She just
moved here from L.A.” I postpone studying the beautiful new
girl by noticing two more things about Robert: he is calling me
Rose instead of Rosie—which he’s been calling me since the day
we first met in sixth grade—and he is sipping his drink in a way
that suggests he’s at a cocktail party at a swanky country club,
not a kegger in a backyard.
When I can no longer put it off, I turn my attention to Holly.
You’d think I’d know better than to shake hands with someone
at a high school party, but because I’m a little intimidated by
the amount of beauty in front of me, I stick my hand out like a
giant dork. Holly graciously does the same, and she doesn’t even
wince when my hand—frozen and wet from my arctic Diet Coke
expedition—touches hers.
Not only is she pretty, she’s classy. No wonder Robert has that
idiotic grin on his face.
“Hi!” she says. Her teeth are shockingly, blindingly white,
and they immediately make me sure that I’ve got spinach stuck
in mine. “I’m new at Union. My dad’s teaching drama at Yale.”
The reply that immediately comes to mind is:
I’m not new at
Union. My dad was blown to pieces in Iraq.
It’s accompanied by
some horror-movie images that I can’t seem to keep out of my
head these days.
“Hi,” I say too cheerfully, trying to drive away the carnage
in my brain. I know that I should offer Holly some interesting
piece of information about myself but I’m unsure of what, exactly, that would be.
Definitely not the thing about Dad. Nothing shuts down a
conversation faster than telling someone your father was killed
by an IED in Iraq.
Holly, it turns out, has totally perfect, long, dark hair that’s
super thick and looks like it’s been flat-ironed by a professional.
Her eyes are huge and brown, I can’t even tell if she’s wearing
makeup and she smiles like she does it for a living. She has on
lots of silver jewelry that clanks and jingles when she moves, and
she’s so petite that I actually stop inhaling in order to feel smaller.
“Rose is the…friend I told you about,” Robert adds meaningfully, with a slight hesitation before the word
friend.
Holly nods,
and I wonder what he told her—
I used to think I was in love with
Rose
or
Rose treated me like crap last year
or
Rose is the one with the
dead dad.
“Holly and I got cast opposite each other in the drama
department’s summer show,” Robert says. “Leading man and
leading lady hook up—total cliché, right?” He smiles down at
her and plants a kiss on the tip of her perfect nose.
If Robert weren’t standing here with his arm around Holly,
there is no way I would ever believe that she was his girlfriend.
First of all, Robert has some problems with telling the truth—
he likes the things he makes up more than he likes reality. Second of all, Holly Taylor seems out of his league. Like,
way
out
of his league. But here they are, all entangled and entwined and
so very couple-y.
“Did you see the show, Rose? Robby was the best Joe in the
history of
Damn Yankees.
” Holly is literally beaming up at Robert.
“And Holly was the hottest Lola,” he says, grinning at her like
she’s the only girl in the world.
I’m torn between irritation at her calling him “Robby” and embarrassment over all the hours I spent at the beginning of summer daydreaming about getting cast as Lola. Last spring, after
my mom took me to see the opera
La Bohème,
I decided that I
want to be a singer. Not an opera singer, though I did learn this
summer, when no one else was around, that I can sing really
loud. Just…a singer. Of some kind. So I considered auditioning
for Union High’s summer musical. I wanted to sing my heart
out onstage as Lola—a vixen in a red dress and heels—and
make everyone see me in a totally new way. But now, standing
here with the person who actually played Lola, I’m suddenly so
mortified that I feel like I have to leave the party immediately.
I mean, how dumb could I be? Lola is beautiful and sexy, and
the whole point of her character is that she can seduce anyone
and get anything. Her big number is literally called, “Whatever
Lola Wants, Lola Gets.”
I can’t even get the guy I like to call me back.
Standing here in front of Holly Taylor in an outfit that my best
friend put together for me with things from her closet, I’m painfully aware that I ain’t no Lola.
“Holly’s dad is a stage, TV and film actor,” Robert says, obviously proud of himself for using the word
film
instead of
movie.
“You’d totally recognize him.”
Holly looks embarrassed and quickly changes the subject.
“Do you act, Rose?”