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was I going to go back into Pikes to ask for a jump. I was never going back in there again. I was never going near Gage again.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER 5
     
     
    Don’t crowd me . I can’t believe Gage said that to me. To me . We’d been friends since the second grade. Suddenly I was crowding him?
    Fine.
    I’d give him space. Plenty of it. All he wanted. I was never going near him again for the rest of my life. In fact, I was going to stay as far away from him as possible.
    As soon as I got to work, Gage called. Not on my cell phone, ‘cause I don’t have one. He called the store. The first time I answered ‘cuz we don’t have caller ID, so I didn’t know it was him. If I had known, I would’ve thrown the phone in the toilet rather than answer. But yeah, I had no clue, so I was all, “Hello, you’ve reached Posh’s ladies’ section, this is Michaela, can I help you?” And I tried saying it all cheerful and friendly, like I’m supposed to, but it was hard. The words kept catching in my throat. I was afraid I was going to start bawling.
    “Michaela, I’m sorry,” Gage said, sounding all genuine and sincere, and his normal awesome self. Hearing his apologetic, sweet voice made me stare up at the ceiling to keep tears from spilling down my face. It didn’t matter what he said though. There was nothing he could say. Still, he went on trying, “You know I didn’t mean it.”
    I hung up on him, swiping at almost shed tears.
    The phone rang again right after I hung up, but I didn’t answer. I let it ring and ring. Customers stared at me questioningly, so finally, I took it off the hook and left it on the counter.
    I actually started crying while I was unloading a new shipment of sweaters. Crying! I don’t cry, well not in front of people, ever. Tears come to my eyes kind of easy, but I don’t let them out. I just don’t. Beth and Izzie and basically everyone I know think I’m tough, but it’s not that. I just...don’t cry. I just keep things in. But not now, tonight. I was bawling like a baby. The tears started rolling down my face like a parade. They wouldn’t stop.
    “Michaela, sweetie, are you alright?” Jade, my boss, put a comforting arm around my shoulders, looking concerned.
    I sniffled, shoving away fresh tears with my sleeves, then with the Kleenex she handed me, the words catching in my throat, “I had a fight with Gage.”
    Jade only graduated from our high school two years ago. She was young and cool. And she knew Gage. She thought he was hot. She was always trying to tell me that Gage only used his girlfriends as a cover. That what he really “wanted” was me.
    “I can tell by the way he stares at you when you’re not looking,” she’d say.
    But that was pretty weak.
    “Why doesn’t he ever make a move on me then?” I asked, like every time she brought it up. Jade would always give the same answer: “He’s afraid of screwing with your friendship.” She’d raise her eyebrows knowingly. “Smart boy.”
    Jade was majoring in psychology. So maybe she knew people’s minds and motives better than Joe Blow off the street. But I was pretty sure her analysis of Gage was crap. For one thing, Gage liked Barbie Dolls—tall, blond, beauty queens. And that wasn’t me. For another, he had many, many, many opportunities to reach out and take me. And what happened when he finally did? When he kissed me? He was grossed out. Disgusted. Apparently. He couldn’t stand to be around me anymore. He told me not to crowd him.
    “Look, I need to go home,” I told Jade. I felt lame, wimping out like that. But I was a mess. Crying! How pathetic. Geez, I never do that, cry.
    Okay, I had cried on my drive to Posh. I cried all of the way over. But I had stayed in my car until I was finished. I thought I had at least a feeble grip on my emotions. And now I was almost done with my shift. Almost made it. But then Gage kept calling, and Shayna, a co-worker who I kind of hate, insisted we had to put the phone