The Secret Recipe for Moving On Karen Bischer (read my book .txt) 📖

be checking over your written materials for your budgets next week. We won’t have much time to work on them in class, as we’ll be cooking this week, so you will probably have to work on it on your own time.”

“What do you mean, ‘on our own time’?” A.J. asks.

“Exactly that, Mr. Johnson. You won’t have enough time to complete your task in class, so you’re going to have to get together as a group during your free time to work on it.”

A.J. crosses his arms. “That’s BS.”

Mrs. Sanchez’s eyes narrow and she puts her hands on her hips. Even in her Snoopy apron, she suddenly looks intimidating. “Excuse me, Mr. Johnson?”

The whole class has stopped mid-preparation to watch this exchange. Even Jared’s bright-green beret, tilted forward on his head, looks interested.

“This class isn’t supposed to be this hard. I didn’t take it to do stuff outside of class. It’s total bullshit.”

“In the hallway, now, Mr. Johnson,” Mrs. Sanchez says, pointing toward the door.

A.J. sets his jaw and stalks out of the room. He doesn’t even look back at Mrs. Sanchez, whose shoulders sag as she follows behind him. “Get started on the lesson, guys,” she says. “I’ll be back in a second.”

We set to work right away without a word. Isaiah starts boiling water for the rice while simultaneously buttering some bread and sprinkling garlic powder on it, while Luke digs out our giant frying pan. Our sautéed vegetables are carrots, snow peas, and green onions, so I just have to cut up the carrots and green onions.

I’m about to start chopping the onions when I realize I need some paper towels to pat them dry. There’s a whole stash of them in the classroom pantry, so I quickly make my way over there. I have to squeeze by Synergy’s kitchen to do so, and just as I pass, Brynn’s demanding voice assaults my ear. “Would you guys mind if we finished our budget before the weekend? Hunter and I are going camping and we won’t be here.”

I freeze in place. They’re going camping? Like Hunter and I were supposed to go camping? So they can have hot sex and Hunter can tell Brynn about my lame underwear choices?

I don’t realize that I’m staring at them until Hunter looks directly at me and his face falls.

“Camping?” I say, not taking my eyes off of him. “Our camping trip?”

Brynn drops her eyes in fake dramatic fashion. “Oh, sorry, Ellie. I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

“Oh, please,” I snap, my voice getting higher. “You waited till I was in earshot to say it. You’re not sorry about anything.”

Brynn’s face contorts into an indignant glare. “Not everything is about you, Ellie.”

I’m breathing heavy, like I’ve just run a mile and not merely walked about five feet. “Yeah, you made that pretty obvious since you moved in on my boyfriend while he was still with me. God, you’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

Brynn can’t seem to formulate a response outside of a couple sputters and sighs.

“Let it go, Brynn,” Hunter says, touching her arm.

“She needs to let it go,” she says, shrugging his hand off of her. “You wanted to be with me just as much as I wanted to be with you.” Then she fixes me with a hard stare. “And it’s not my fault she doesn’t know what a girlfriend is supposed to do.”

The words sting like a slap across the face and tears start burning in my eyes, and to make matters worse, I hear one of the Jersey Strong girls whisper, “Oh shiiiit!” and some people giggle in response. Which means what I feared is true: The whole school knows I’m a virgin of my own cold-fish doing.

A.J. and Mrs. Sanchez re-enter the room then, and Mrs. Sanchez totally notices that something is going on. “Everything all right?” Actually, it’s more of a statement, as if there’s no other acceptable answer except “yes.”

“It’s fine,” Hunter says, but his eyes are on me, pleading to not make any more of a scene.

“Yes, fine,” I say, though my voice cracks and betrays me. “I need some more paper towels, though, so…” I stride into the pantry as the tears spill over. I can’t do this. No matter how much I think I’m over this, I’m always going to be the one who got dumped while Brynn gets to shop at Victoria’s Secret and do the nasty with my ex in the woods, and everyone will be on her side.

While I’m the girl who yells at them in front of everyone like a lovelorn psycho.

I sink to the floor, wracked with silent sobs, and I’m glad the classroom activity has resumed because I’m never going to be over this. Ever. And I’m never going back out into that classroom. Or at least not until class is over.

That’s when Isaiah sort of tiptoes into the pantry and, in a low voice, says, “Hey. Are you all right?”

“Fine,” I chirp. “I just need some—” but before I can finish, an involuntary wave of tears comes over me, and I’m totally sobbing again.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp.

“Oh no,” Isaiah says, frowning. “I didn’t mean to make you cry!”

“It’s not you,” I say, tearing off a paper towel from one of the rolls next to me, wiping my eyes. “It’s them. You saw. The whole effing class saw.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong, and I think the, uh, whole effing class knows that.”

“But they think Hunter dumped me because,” I pause, and it literally makes my heart hurt to say it: “I’m uptight.”

Isaiah scowls. “You give him too much credit. That guy’s completely ridiculous.”

In spite of everything, that makes me giggle. “Gee, Isaiah, tell me how you really feel.”

“No, seriously. He cheated on you with her, right? That’s just … wrong. Like, really wrong. He doesn’t deserve to have someone crying over him in a pantry. Or anywhere else for that matter. He’s pathetic.”

I study Isaiah for a moment. He’s keeping his distance