A Girl's Guide to Being Jilted | ✓

06 | In Which She Risks Food Poisoning

Rolling down the freeway with the rain pelting a thunderous beat on the roof of the car I couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and turn on the radio.

The rain outside sounded like the low moaning of someone in pain or calling for help and I had to admit it freaked me out a lot.

“Is it bothering you?” Mateo broke the silence in the car by asking.

“What?”

“The rain. No matter how long the journey is you only turn on the radio in the rain.”

“That’s ridiculous, I do not,” I scoffed.

“Yes, you do.” He glanced sideways at me before turning back to the road. “Eight years and you still have difficulty admitting when I’m right.”

“That’s because you’re not.”

Matty just shook his head.

Thankfully by this time the sound of the rain was almost inaudible as some sort of classical music filled the interior of the car.

I still could not believe it was Matty sitting right beside me. Matty that used to be scared of the dark now had biceps that rippled with every movement.

I must’ve passed out and woken up in some alternate universe.

“So what has changed since I left?” I asked conversationally. And to distract me from thoughts of reaching out and poking his arm to find out if those muscles were real.

He shrugged. “Not much.”

All of a sudden I felt the temperature in the car dropped a few degrees and it wasn’t because of the rain.

I couldn’t explain why but somehow I could sense he didn't like having me in his car.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” I said softly, turning my attention to the drops of water haphazardly trickling down the window.

I didn’t blame him. The only person that wanted me at the moment was my mother and even then, with the way thing were going I suspected not for long.

I heard him sigh. “It’s not an inconvenience, really. I just . . .”

He stopped talking when he realized that I wasn’t listening to him.

I traced one drop of water as it made its way down the window. Once it disappeared I drew a smiley face on the condensation that had formed on the window.

I couldn’t help the self-loathing that ravaged my soul and that in turn fed the hatred I constantly felt for myself.

Ever since my childhood and the dark years of my tweendom I hated being a charity case. I hated bothering people with my problems and I loathed needing help from anybody.

Now as if being dumped in a church in my wedding dress wasn’t bad enough, I’d suddenly been thrown headfirst into a sea of everything I despised the most. And the worst part was it seemed I had only two very dire options: drown or lose my sanity.

I felt the low rumble of the car cease and looked up from my introspection. Through the hazy surface of the windshield and the swishing of the wipers, I could see the erratic flickering of the neon sign of Pete’s Pizza.

Unfortunately, most of the bulbs in the sign were dead and so with the gray light from the sky, the only letters one could see were Pees Pizz.

Mateo sighed. “Remember when we were nine.”

This caught my attention so I suspended my slightly destructive train of thought and looked at him.

Even though I’d been staring at him since he came to my aid a couple of minutes ago, it was still quite a shock looking at him. He looked cute — albeit thoroughly wet — in his green sweater and blue jeans and I couldn’t believe how long it’d been since I last saw him.