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I’m sure they’re speculating why I’m still sitting here alone. A disgruntled middle-aged guy has been sitting there for a while. Bags are spread out on the bench next to him. His wife stops by to add three big bags to their collection, then takes off to do even more shopping. The poor guy looks miserable.
    Warner is eating and watching me like I’m a movie. One of the girls in the group blows her straw wrapper at him. She says something. The whole table cracks up.
    I can’t take the humiliation any longer. I get up to leave. Which means that I was officially stood up. And those kids from school saw the whole thing.

    As soon as I get home, I check my messages.
    There aren’t any.
    I check my email.
    Nothing.
    Then I call Matt.
    It goes straight to voice mail.

six
monday, april 18
(44 days left)
    I kept thinking Matt would call.
    He never called.
    That was the longest weekend of my life.
    I left a message when I called him Friday night after I got home. It wasn’t an angry rant or anything. I just said that I waited a long time for him and that I hoped he was okay and please call me back. When he kept not calling all weekend, I kept wanting to call him again. I wanted to keep trying until he picked up.
    But I didn’t. It was obvious that he didn’t want to talk to me.
    I’ve gone over everything a million times. I can’t figure out what I did wrong. What made him change his mind about me?
    Am I really that impossible to love?

    When I was in ninth grade, the captain of the football team asked me out.
    I know. It seems impossible. The most popular guys don’t ask out the most unpopular girls.
    Unless one of those guys doesn’t know who he’s talking to.
    It was the first day of high school. I was terrified. But for Trevor Burke, it was just the beginning of yet another awesome year of his consistently awesome life. He wouldn’t become captain of the football team until the following year, but you could already tell he’d get it. Some people’s destiny is understood.
    Our algebra class was mainly sophomores. I was ahead one year in math. Trevor was one year behind. That’s how he ended up sitting behind me in algebra on the first day of school.
    “You’re cute,” he whispered to me.
    Of course I didn’t respond. He was just setting me up to believe he actually thought I was cute. Then he would humiliate me in front of the entire class.
    I waited for the teasing to continue.
    It didn’t.
    “Can I get your number?” Trevor whispered.
    He was serious. I decided to save him some time.
    “Ask about me,” I whispered back.
    “What do you want me to ask?”
    “Just ask around. They’ll tell you.”
    “Who?”
    “Anyone who knows me. You’ll see.” I’d given up any hope of being with a boy like Trevor Burke. He existed on a whole other level. The all-American, sun-kissed, handsome football star. Thekind of boy parents hope their sons grow up to be.
    When Trevor came to class the next day, he didn’t look at me. He didn’t talk to me ever again.
    We belonged to two very different worlds. Even though he sat behind me in algebra.

    Sherae is on the warpath.
    “He’s not getting away with this,” she promises at our daily meetup. I was too depressed to call her when I got home Friday night, so I told her about Matt when she called Saturday morning. She was way angrier about it than I was.
    “Please don’t do anything,” I beg. “Let’s just wait and see what happens.”
    “Are you delusional? We already saw what happened. What happened was Matt Brennan being a scumbag.”
    “But we don’t know why he didn’t show up yet.”
    “Because he is a scumbag. That is why.”
    “Maybe he—”
    “No.”
    “He could have—”
    “No.”
    “But—”
    “He needs to apologize. I find it highly suspect that he hasn’t yet.”
    “Just … I’ll take care of it.”
    “Are you sure? Because I’m ready to rumble.”
    “Yeah, Ponyboy. I picked up on that.”

    Spontaneous eye contact with