Lovestruck Summer Melissa Walker (top 100 books to read .TXT) 📖

my best-kiss-ever. But I don’t. I just walk inside in a daze. Did I just put my heart in the middle of a highway and watch it get splattered by an eighteen-wheeler? Because that’s what it feels like. I walk past the party revelry, up the stairs to Miss Tiara’s room. She raises her head when I open the door, and licks my hand when I sit down next to her on the fl oor. I stare at the blank walls for a moment before I hear more footsteps on the stairs. “Quinn?”Penny knocks on the door as she calls my name. She pokes her head in and Jade is right behind her. They look at me worriedly as they join me on the fl oor. It’s like we’re in a séance circle around Miss Tiara. “What happened?”asks Jade. “Did you have a fi ght with Sebastian?”My night has been so crazy that I’m not sure where to start. “Sebastian left,”says Penny. “And Quinn was outside making out with Russ. Until Katie came back.”

189 Wow. I guess my cousin is like the Ernest Hemingway of retelling other people’s drama, because she knows where to start and fi nish, sum- ming up my evening in three concise sentences. I raise an eyebrow at her. “I was spying on you through the window,”she explains sheepishly. “I can’t resist a roman- tic moment—even if it isn’t mine.”“Wait,”says Jade. “Slow down. When did Sebastian leave?”“Maybe an hour ago,”I say. “He kept asking if I wanted to get out of here and saying that it wasn’t his scene and all that. I guess I just got tired of it. I mean, it’s not like you’re a Tri-Pi type, but you were having fun. And Russ said I was beautiful and I was looking at the stars and this song was playing and it just seemed like everything was—”I pause and look at their faces. I’m rambling. “Okay, fi ne,”I say. “So we kissed and now he’s out there with some Katie. Who the hell is Katie anyway?”I stare at my cousin, demand- ing an answer. Penny sighs. “She’s his ex,”she says. “She was in London earlier this summer, doing some

190 program with the history department, but she’s back now.”“And she just happens to suddenly reappear in the middle of the best kissing ever?!”I ask. “I don’t think Russ knew she was coming back this weekend,”says Penny. “Things ended pretty badly between them.”“How long were they together?”asks Jade. “Almost two years,”says Penny. “They met right at the end of freshman year.”We all look down at Miss Tiara’s pillow. This is intense. I’m suddenly regretting a lot of things. “I never should have told Sebastian to leave,”I say. “Quinn, it doesn’t mean anything that this girl is back,”says Jade. “So what?”I look over at Penny, who’s biting her lip. “What?”I ask. “Nothing,”she says. “I’m not sure what it means that Katie’s here now. I mean, I know Russ really likes you . . . but they were, like, in love.”I feel a sharp pain in my chest. “You guys, I think I want to be alone,”I

191 say. I have this urge to put on my headphones and curl up next to Miss Tiara. “Can I have a blanket and a pillow?”I ask Penny. “I’ll sleep in here.”With the party raging downstairs, it’s not like I really have a choice. The next morning, I wake up to Miss Tiara lick- ing my nose. I look at my iPod—it’s 6:14 A.M. I stand up to avoid the Tongue and I walk into the bathroom to splash some water on my face. There are discarded cups all over the sink area, and they smell gross. My makeup, I see, has that morning-after stank to it. Usually I think that’s a good look, but today it just reminds me that last night went in a weird direction that ended up with me feeling hurt. I sigh out loud and Miss Tiara growls softly in commiseration. “Let’s take a walk,”I say to her, heading to her closet to fi nd her Juicy tank top. The fact that I’m dressing up this dog for a walk is some- thing I would never admit to Raina back home, but the truth is, she does seem to like it. I grab the leash and step outside. It’s really quiet this early in the morning,

192 and as we stroll along the sidewalk of the condo complex, I kind of appreciate not having my iPod on right now. I can hear my own thoughts. And my brain is buzzing. I keep turning over in my mind how Russ isn’t my type, how he’s the most frustrating person I’ve ever met, how incompatible we are. Raina would die if she saw how Texas he is, with his grass-in-mouth, cowboy smile, big-buckle- wearing self. And Raina would also die in a dif- ferent way if she saw Sebastian in person—he’s so perfectly indie, and exactly what I wanted in a summer fl ing. So what if he felt uncomfortable last night? It’s the kind of party where I would defi nitely feel weird if I didn’t know any of my cousin’s friends. Didn’t Penny scare me when she fi rst picked me up this summer? But then I think about Jade, and how she can fi t in anywhere, in the indie scene, here at soror- ity central, with Rick and the bands on Amalgam. In lots of ways—minus the hooking up with our boss part—Jade is the girl I want to be. And Russ, even though he’s such a truck- driving, baseball-cap-wearing frat guy I could never see myself with, he’s always himself.

193 He doesn’t change for people. He knows who he is. All these thoughts are in my head fl oating around, sorting themselves as Miss Tiara and I meander through the complex. The main one, though, is the kissing. I can still feel the fi reworks inside me when I let my mind linger on Russ’s