The Breakup Support Group

I shake my head, knowing she can’t see through the phone call. “If I have to see those photos right now, I’ll lose it.”

“Fine, I’ll do it,” she says with a resigned sigh. “What’s your password?”

I bite my lip. “Nate824. Capital N.”

“Yeah, I’m going to be changing that, too,” she says. “How about BadBitch01?”

“What’s the zero one for?” I ask.

“It’s symbolizing your new life. Number one, starting over.”

I smile. “Okay. Change it. And Ciara?”

There’s more keyboard tapping on her end. “Yes ma’am, Miss Bad Bitch?”

I draw in a deep breath. “Erase every inch of him from my page.”

“I’m on it. Now clean out your room and call me in the morning.”

When I end the phone call, I can’t help but smile. There’s no way Nate won’t notice my Facebook transformation. He’ll probably be upset that the photos of him will be removed, and the girls he’s dating now won’t get to see him in his muscled glory. Nate never posted many photos of his own; he’d always relied on me to post things and tag him in it. Now his page will be barren, and he’ll be smacked with a reminder that he threw me away. This shitty day just keeps getting better.

I put on some music as I tear through my room, packing up things of importance to my old relationship and moving old items to new places to give the room a new feel. My bed is too heavy to move, but I switch my nightstand to the other side and move my desk to another wall. And as much as it hurts, I take down the Warriors football memorabilia. I might have been a proud Warrior for eleven years of my life, but I wouldn’t have cared about our school’s team sports if my boyfriend wasn’t a football star.

As I move throughout my room, I can’t help but think of Emory’s words in the hallway earlier today. As much as I’ve repeatedly told myself that he’s just a player who wouldn’t know good advice if it kicked him in the balls, I can’t shove his stupid terminology out of my mind.

Special snowflake.

He doesn’t even know me and yet he has the audacity to accuse me of thinking I’m special. I mean isn’t that the exact thing that we’re told from children’s TV shows and from teachers and adults for our entire lives? That we’re special, and we deserve love? So who the hell is he to act like that’s a bad thing?

My chest tightens as I recall that moment with Emory in the stairwell. I think of a million witty comebacks that I should have said, but it’s all too late now. Screw him for thinking I am not important. Screw him for being an asshole in the name of trying to make me feel better. If he thinks he can tear me down, turn me into one of those pathetic girls he dates only to discard later, he’s wrong. He is so fucking wrong. I don’t need Nate and I sure as hell don’t need to crush on a guy who gets his kicks from telling girls they aren’t special.

Starting today, I am a new person, and I don’t need anyone who doesn’t need me.

Hours later, when my room is a completely redesigned Nate-free territory, I head to the kitchen and take some leftover dinner out of the refrigerator. Mom sits at the kitchen table, hot gluing green ribbons onto hair ties.

“You feeling okay, honey?” she asks, not looking up at me while she glues.

“I’m great, why?”

She lifts an eyebrow and squeezes more glue onto the ribbon. “You missed dinner earlier. That’s not like you.”

I smile so it shows in my voice. “I was just busy with homework. Don’t worry, I’m eating twice as much now.”

Mom looks up, holding the glue gun over a paper plate. Her brows knit together as she watches me scoop a huge helping of mac and cheese onto my plate. “You seem a lot better today.”

I nod. “I am a lot better.”

“You’re not going to ask me about Nate? If I’ve seen him around school lately?”

I shrug. “Why would I?”

Her lips press together as she watches me with narrowed eyes. She probably expects me to burst into tears again, but I pop my plate into the microwave with a smile on my face. The days and nights of weeping Isla are now gone forever. “Well,” she says with an impressed nod. “Looks like that counselor is helping out a lot.”

More like the support group helped me out. And Emory, in a weird way.

Not that I’ll ever tell him that.

Chapter Fifteen