Solving for Ex

Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

bickerings and jealousies

I busted through the double auditorium doors to the hallways, only then realizing how much I’d loved the little island of Mathletes practice in an otherwise empty sea of velvet-covered auditorium. The hallway was a salmon run, a frenzy of kids not really thinking about where they were going or why. Voices and conversations flowed around me like water, individual words droplets splashing against my skin.

And then a whole spray of them hit me in the face.

“Can you believe that whore Ashley Price is the one who gets to be making out with Vincent on Sadie night?” Britt’s voice was distinctively sharp among the dozens of others around me.

If I could have, I would’ve stopped dead in my tracks. It wasn’t the “making out” or even the “Vincent” that stopped me. It wasn’t even the fact that I’d never wanted to go to Sadie with him in the first place.

It was the words “whore” and “Ashley” in the same sentence. It knocked the wind out of me.

I shouldered my way through the crush of kids to my right, leaned against the wall, turned to the side so that no one could see me and so that I could catch my breath. Even through my gasps, I could hear the rest of what they were saying. “Hanging all over Brendan since the day she got here…then going after the guy we all want? Like he’s more interested in her than he is in us? Like she even stands a chance?”

It had been a long time since I’d had to deal with this kind of shit. Eight months, to be exact. Hadn’t been trash-talked about, not in broad daylight at least, since I left Williamson.

I wasn’t going after Vincent at all. Of course I was stunned a little bit every time he looked at me since I met him weeks ago—those warm eyes and thick lashes were almost too gorgeous to be real. Never mind the fact that they focused on me with interest. I was pretty, just as pretty as some of the other girls, but I didn’t dress as nicely, and didn’t run with the giggly boy-baiting crowds. Never attracted that much attention from any guy.

Until now.

I’d always thought no one cared that much about me being close to Brendan—although even thinking about the girls saying I was hanging on him made me bristle, since I never did that. Even being hopelessly in love with him, I knew the difference between acting like a guy’s best friend and throwing myself at him.  

Besides, one of the reasons I’d always loved Brendan was that he didn’t act like the other popular, rich guys around those girls. He didn’t take girls out on fancy dates, and never bought expensive clothes. And he didn’t look like the famous actors in magazines. He was just Brendan. With his warm smile and floppy hair and his slightly skinny frame and broken-in jeans and incredible brain and uncannily complete understanding of me.

And, I reminded myself as I watched him walk out of a classroom and down the hall with Sofia, his interest in the drop-dead gorgeous new girl.

Either way, Brendan was the one I cared about, and Sadie Hawkins with Vincent was not worth the trouble it would apparently cause. He was cute, but not cute enough to elicit the word “whore” being spat at me for the next eight months, and probably another visit to the psych ward. I had to figure out a way to un-ask him. But first, since my pulse was already racing and I was breaking out in a sweat, I had to get the hell out of there.

The rush of students had thinned considerably in the time it had taken me to catch my breath and screw my head on straight. Still, I plowed through the middle of the hallway like that was the only way to get through. Maybe it was. Just ten more steps till I reached the outside air.