Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend. Louise Rozett

      Jamie can be loyal to a fault.

      I wonder what Jamie’s mother would say about his father leaving him in jail overnight.

      I saw Jamie’s father from a distance last Thanksgiving at a restaurant, and he seemed way more interested in the football game that was on than in talking to Jamie. I don’t know a lot about him—I know that he’s a cop, and that he went a little crazy for a while and Jamie actually had to live with the Deladdoses for a few months, which I try not to think about because it drives me crazy.

      But I know even less about Jamie’s mother. Only that she didn’t live with Jamie and his dad because she was in some kind of institution near Boston. I also know that it was soon after she died that Jamie got kicked off the hockey team.

      Which is when he became one of my mom’s patients.

      Yes, I am the very lucky daughter of an adolescent psychologist who is in therapy herself. No wonder I avoid conversation with her at all costs.

      It drives me nuts that my mother knows more about Jamie than I do. Although, at this point, that would be true of anyone who actually had a conversation with Jamie this summer—the cashier at the grocery store, the guys he worked with on the road crew, his probation officer.

      Regina.

      “What do you want me to do with this blanket?” Conrad asks, unbuckling his seat belt. Before Tracy can answer, the Deladdos’ front door opens. A woman looks out at us, her hand hovering over the screen-door handle as if she’s unsure what to do. She shields her eyes against the glare of the light above her front steps in order to see us better.

      “Shit,” Conrad mutters. He runs his hands through his hair and looks down at his ruined pants and his red shirt, which now looks vaguely tie-dyed.

      “Just leave it there,” Tracy answers.

      Without another word, Conrad gets out of the car, slams the door too hard and starts up his front walk. As I watch him, he seems to physically transform, like he’s trying to become invisible. He ducks his head and looks at the ground, pulling his shirt down as far over his pants as he possibly can and then giving up and jamming his hands into his pockets. The woman holds open the screen door for him and he slides in sideways so as not to touch her or let her touch him. She asks him something and he shakes his head while moving past her as if his life depends on it. She watches him take the stairs two at a time and then, after he has disappeared from her sight, turns back to us. She lifts one hand to shield her eyes again, and then gives us a hesitant wave before slowly closing the door.

      expiate (verb): to make up for doing something wrong (see also: Jamie…apologizes?)

      3

      “MATT IS A TOTAL SADIST.”

      “Trace,” I say, pretending to be shocked. “Did you finally open that vocabulary study guide I gave you, like, a year ago?”

      She rolls her eyes at me. “He is.”

      I’m tempted to remind Tracy that I spent almost all of freshman year telling her that Matt had turned into a sadistic jerk, but we’ve been getting along so great, the last thing I want to do is say I told you so. Even though I kind of do want to say it.

      Tracy pulls a pair of super-soft yoga pants and a blue T-shirt that she knows I love out of her dresser and hands them to me. “Here. And don’t forget the leave-in conditioner. There is nothing worse for your hair than chlorine. Matt’s hair felt like straw all the time.”

      “Gross,” I say as I pull her silk T-shirt over my head. I know it’s ruined—it now feels more like Styrofoam than silk. As soon as I get it off, Tracy rushes it into the bathroom to begin a special washing ritual in her sink involving a “delicates” soap—I had no idea there was such a thing—that comes in a black bottle shaped like a corset.

      “I’m really sorry about your shirt,” I say as I follow her slowly. I hate Tracy’s bathroom. I try to avoid using it because the entire thing is full of mirrors—there is literally no escape from looking at yourself, unless you’re in the shower. And looking at myself is not one of my favorite things to do. I actually took the mirror off the back of my closet door this summer because I was constantly checking my hair and my face to see if anything good was finally happening.

      It never was.

      Tracy, on the other hand, has what Caron would call a “healthy sense of self-esteem.” She checks herself out constantly to make sure that the outfit she put together works from every angle and that her hair and makeup are achieving maximum effect. When I watch her do this, I don’t think, my best friend is vain, like I used to. Instead, I think, What is it like to actually enjoy looking at yourself? I mean, it’s not that I expect to look in the mirror and see Giselle. But there’s got to be something in between “I’m so gorgeous” and “I’m so hideous.” Right?

      There’s got to be.

      “Don’t worry about the shirt,” Tracy says as she swishes it around in the water over and over in a figure-eight pattern. Unfortunately, I can tell she just doesn’t want me to feel bad. I know it’s totally killing her that the shirt got trashed before she even got to wear it once.

      “I’ll get you a new one if it’s ruined, okay?”

      “Uh-uh. If it’s ruined, Matt is getting me a new one. And he’s also getting Conrad some new pants.”

      “Yeah, good luck with that,” I say.

      “I should threaten to call his mother. She always liked me. I bet she’d love to know he was trying to drown a freshman for fun.” She lifts the shirt out of the sink, gives it a sniff and puts it back to soak some more. “Blackmail might work. And if it doesn’t, at least I’ll get to tell his parents that he’s having sex, and his birth control method is to say to the girl, ‘You worry about it.’”

      I look at Tracy in the mirror. “I thought you said you guys used a condom.”

      Tracy sighs. This is a conversation we had over and over last year, when Matt kept trying to convince Tracy that she should be on the Pill, and I kept telling her that she had to make him use a condom. “We did, Rosie. But only because I had them. He was only thinking about himself. So not worth it. Be glad you’re still a virgin.” She points at a bottle sitting on the edge of the tub, knowing that of course I had already forgotten all about it. “Don’t forget to use that leave-in conditioner.”

      Tracy closes the door behind her, leaving me standing in the room of mirrors in my bra and the loose-fit white capris I borrowed from her—I couldn’t get my runner’s thighs into her skinny jeans if I covered them in cooking oil. I turn to face the shower curtain and peel the damp clothes off, trying not to catch a glimpse of myself—I don’t feel like seeing my naked body in the mirror while wondering if it’s weird that I’m still a virgin.

      I’m a fifteen-year-old high school sophomore—it shouldn’t be weird that I haven’t had sex yet. But somehow, when Tracy points out that I’m a virgin—which has happened more than once since she slept with Matt—it feels weird.

      Once the water gets hot enough, I stand under it for at least 10 minutes, feeling the heat soak into me. It’s the warmest I’ve felt since Jamie pulled me out of the pool, his hands hot against my skin, his eyes practically on fire with anger.

      Is he mad at me? He’s the one who stood me up, I keep reminding myself. So what is he so pissed off about?

      Caron says I have to stop feeling like everything is my fault. And she follows that up with a question about whether I feel like Dad’s death was my fault. My mother always looks like she’s going to vomit when we get to that part.

      I turn off the shower and dry myself while I’m still standing behind the curtain. Then I put on