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you want to take the smelling salts? Just in case?”
    I forced a smile. “No thanks,” I said. “Hopefully I’ve maxed out my blackout potential for one night. I’ll call you later?”
    SBB held up both her hands with her pointer and middle fingers crossed, our secret sign for good luck. I returned the gesture, and with that, slid down from the car and went to face Alex on the steps.
    He was wearing his Diesel jeans with the rip in the thigh from when we’d hopped that fence to get into the Knicks game a few weeks ago. His dark hair was still damp, probably from the shower he’d taken after lacrosse practice. He smelled so good, like pine needles and—no. I couldn’t get all swoony again. I needed my wits about me.
    â€œHi,” I said stiffly.
    â€œHi,” he said. He didn’t stand up to kiss me, like he always did, so I just took a seat next to him. But just as I was sitting down, he started to stand up and moved in for a kiss, which missed my lips and landed awkwardly on my nose.
    Normally, we would have cracked up about that. But neither one of us seemed to think it was funny tonight.
    â€œHow are you?” he asked.
    â€œGood.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong?”
    â€œNothing,” I said quickly. “What’s wrong with you?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œOh.”
    There was a weird pause, and then Alex asked, “Excited about Paris?”
    â€œUh-huh,” I said, not looking at him. “Are you?”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I could see him nod. We stared out at the empty street and watched a pigeon waddle by. This was awful—and so not
us
.
    Finally, Alex turned to me.
    â€œLook, Flan, there’s something I think we should talk about.”
    Oh my God, oh my God. He was going to bring it up. He was going to tell me that he’d fallen in love with a girl named
Cookie
, and that he was spending spring break with her on a deserted island, and that both of them were Team Kennedy now. I was so mortified and so hurt. I knew right then that I couldn’t even stand to hear his explanation.
    â€œI have something I need to say too,” I said quickly.
    â€œYou do?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
    â€œI know what happened last night,” I said.
    â€œ
You do
?” he said, sounding shocked. “And?”
    â€œAnd I’m appalled,” I said. “I thought things were going so well with us.”
    â€œMe too,” he said. “But then—”
    â€œI don’t want to hear it,” I said briskly, cutting him off. I was surprised that I was on such a roll. Usually I’d have crumbled by now, but I just held my ground and said, “I think Kennedy already told me everything I needed to know.”
    â€œSo you and Kennedy have already talked about it,” he said. He sounded disappointed. “I wanted to be the first—”
    â€œToo late,” I huffed. “Kennedy’s not exactly the person I wanted to hear it from either. But when she showed me that picture—”
    â€œPicture?” Alex asked.
    At the mention of the picture of Alex and—shudder—
Cookie
, I felt my throat start to constrict. I was
not
going to cry. If I cried, he would put his arms around me—or worse—he wouldn’t. Either way, I couldn’t handle it. I needed to stay strong.
    â€œI don’t want to get into it,” I said. “I’m sure you understand.”
    Alex looked confused, but nodded. “So what do we do?” he asked.
    â€œYou haven’t left us with much choice,” I sniffed. “Obviously we have to break up. I can’t be with someone who’s not committed.”
    â€œWhat? No. We don’t have to break up.”
    I couldn’t believe he was going to cheat on me and then argue for us to stay together. That was just plain insulting.
    â€œAre you kidding? I can barely stand to look at you right now. I can’t be your