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movie, went dancing at some warehouse, no big deal. Why, are you my mother?”
    “What’s with you?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Well, Katie’s party was the best yet,” Ashley piped up from nowhere. “No losers to wreck things.”
    Everyone sucked in their breath, expecting me to punch her or something. I might have, too, only the five-minute bell rang and everyone took off.
    Except for me.
    I went to my cubicle in the second-floor washroom and thought about my date with Jason, which is all I’ve been doing since it happened. My mind is like this horror movie on automatic replay. I can’t make it stop or go away.
    Sleep? Forget it. Last night I snuck one of Mom’s pills. Even that didn’t help. I’d close my eyes and the movie’d start on the inside of my eyelids. Like, I’m not just having a nightmare. I’m living one.
    And I can’t tell anyone without getting into trouble or having it blabbed all over. That’s why I’m writing it down. I can’t avoid it anymore. Can’t pretend it didn’t happen. I have to get it out. All of it. Thank god Ms. Graham’s off for a mental break. Our supply teacher is this old bald guy. He’s letting us write for the whole period, as long as we sit quietly.
    Okay. So anyway, here goes:
    I get to the mall early Saturday to buy some stuff to bury the crap Mom made me pack in my knapsack for my supposed night at Katie’s: a change of clothes, toiletries, a towel.
    I do the mall tour, cramming my knapsack with brand names to impress Jason. (I plan to return them tomorrow, or guilt Dad into a cash advance. Once he hears I have a boyfriend, I figure he’ll use that as an excuse to ditch our Sundays for more time with Brenda. Fine. Let him buy off his conscience.)
    Last but not least, I pick up a fancy shopping bag for my new club gear: this wild, fluorescent pink-and-lime baby-doll number, plus a white Day-Glo boa and a cheap blonde beehive wig. When I add my sparkle makeup and orange eyelashes, Jason’ll cream his jeans big time.
    I look at my watch. It’s 5:30. I grab a Coke and stake out Starbucks from a table behind a pillar at the opposite end of the food court. That way I’ll be able to see Jason arrive without him thinking I’ve gotten there early. I can also check myself out in my compact.
    I peek at the mirror every two minutes, making little makeup corrections, then wondering if the corrections are too much or too little, then smudging things, fixing smudges. It’s unbelievable.
    Pretty soon it’s 6:00, then 6:05, then 6:10, then ohmigod 6:15! Panic attack! What if he came and I was staring at my compact and he didn’t see me and left?
    I start to sweat. I tell myself to stop; all sweating will do is wreck my makeup. That thought gets me even more flustered and I start to sweat all over again. Fanning my armpits just makes things worse. And now it’s 6:25.
    That’s it—he’s come and gone. He thinks I stood him up. Or maybe he stood me up? Or he’s at a different Starbucks? I’m soaking now, except for my throat, which is dry.
    I glug my Coke. Somebody taps my shoulder from behind. I jump. Coke goes out my nose. I whirl around. It’s him. I’m wiping my face with napkins and my makeup’s ruined and he’s laughing.
    “It’s not funny!”
    “Sorry.” He’s still laughing.
    “I thought we’d missed each other.”
    He points to the HMV store behind me. “I’ve been there the whole time.”
    “Why didn’t you come over?”
    “I was enjoying myself.”
    “Doing what?”
    “Watching.”
    Jason’s smiling, so I smile too, only I don’t really get the joke.
    “So ... what time’s the movie?”
    “There isn’t going to be a movie,” he says. “I’ve got a surprise.”
    The surprise is his folks are up at their cottage. His dad is this big-shot lawyer in something called Mergers and Acquisitions, and he just finished a major real estate deal. His parents decided to take off at the last minute, which means Jason has the house to himself. The idea