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Mom’s face. She stares at me with watery eyes and sighs. “You don’t mean that. Do you?”
    I don’t. I still talk to and see my dad—when he has time for me. His new family keeps him busy as well as his job at Columbia University. Plus, it’s just flat-out awkward being around Lidia and her mom, knowing he chose them over me and Mom.
    “I’ve had a bad day.”
    My mother’s face softens a little as she closes the space between us and pulls me into a hug. Without wanting to, I break down into a snotty, choked-filled cry. “He just…admitted to cheating on me.” Normally, if this were one of my friends, I’d have added, “all because I wouldn’t sleep with him!” But they haven’t answered my calls so I’m not bawling my eyes out to them right this second.
    This is my mother, who firmly believes I am not a virgin. The same woman who insisted I get on birth control after a year of dating that stupid, bastard Kevin, even after I told her how that was unnecessary. If we die, and our memories are somehow reincarnated into a new life, that is one argument I hope I never have to relive!
    She pets my head and rocks me as if I were a toddler with a boo-boo. I turn my head slightly in the nook of her shoulder and notice my door is open. It’s too late to care if Caleb hears or sees me like this. I’ve already made a mess of myself in his presence today.
    “Want to go get some ice cream and talk about it?” my mother offers, pulling me away from my current thoughts.
    “Can we go anywhere to get the ice cream?” Please, oh please, anywhere but here.
    She nods. “Sure. But when we come back you’re unpacking the rest of these boxes. I want to be able to run a vacuum in this room.” And just like that, the small feeling of victory left.
     
    ***
     
    Sunday morning, my phone buzzes against the palm of my hand. Squinting at the screen, I answer, “Hello?”
    “Sky? Hey, um…it’s Sam.”
    Moving against my sheets, I sit up a little straighter and say, “Sam, oh my God, I’ve had like the worse few days ever! It’s so good to hear your voice.”
    There’s a long pause. “Sam?”
    “I heard about your breakup. I also heard you’re dating some Bobcat now?”
    I tighten my grip on my phone and growl, “What? Is that what Kevin told you?”
    “It doesn’t matter who told me.” This is Sam’s way of not getting involved. Or at least that’s how she puts it. She sucks in a breath. “Look, it doesn’t matter if you’re dating them or not, I mean you are one of them now. And that’s the reason we’re calling.”
    I feel like all the air has been sucked right out of me. “I’m not one of anything!”
    “Sky. This is hard for us too, but come Monday, it’s official. You’ll be a Bobcat. If any of us were in your shoes, we’d be ticked off at our behavior. But you’ve gotta see this from our view.”
    Her blow is coming but I interrupt it. “Don’t do this to me, Sam. We’ve been friends since kindergarten. We’re blood sisters!” Yes, I did that with them—pricked my finger and joined it with theirs. We were oblivious to disease at six. “My boyfriend of two years told me he’s been sleeping with ‘The Sonar Mia’ for three months!” I nicknamed her that because she hones in on anything male within a hundred-yard radius. Sam snaps her gum into the receiver. She’s not listening to me. “This has been the worse month of my life, please, I’m begging you, Sam, you and Mikia are all I have,” I whisper.
    “Then come home, Sky. I know you like taking dangerous risks and all but this is your life. ‘Cause you know Bulldogs and Bobcats aren’t friends.”
    The final string keeping my composure together breaks. My temper rises like a heat wave. I push myself off the bed and pace the space between the door and the bed. “What are you saying then? I can’t call you ? Our friendship means nothing to you because of what my mother is making me do?” I’m so livid I could drive my fist