Page 55 of I Don't Need Your Romance

I throw my hands on my hips. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m just saying.”

I pick up her controller and move her ball of light around, even though I don’t really know what I’m doing. “You think I’ll still be friends with Damian in the future?”

“So you guys are officially friends?”

“We declared it yesterday.”

“Nice! Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know if you’ll be friends. We can’t know the future, but I don’t see why you shouldn’t be. If you both want it, I mean.”

“I want it. I just wonder if he does.” I shake my head and hand her the controller. “Why am I even worrying about this? I’m too young for this. I’m heading back to the room to grab my book so I can keep you company while you finish your game.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Right as I head for the door, Richie, who apparently is still here playing the arcade games, calls, “Hey, Susan! Want to watch me beat another high score?”

With a roll of my eyes, I march out of the room.

Chapter Eighteen

Sophie

“I’m very bad with boys.”

Lying on my bed with my head hanging over the edge and my hair sweeping the floor, I stare at the ceiling with nothing but dejection seeping out of my pores. It’s Friday evening and I haven’t had any more luck finding a potential boyfriend than I did when I first started on Tuesday.

“I must be defective,” I continue. “My parents should return me to the hospital and ask for a replacement.”

“Since when are you such a drama queen?” Carly asks with a laugh. She, Addie, and Raven sit on Raven’s bed and are trying to find something to do. Friday nights are usually movie nights, but so far, we haven’t yet agreed on what to watch.

“I’m not,” I say. “It’s just different when it’s proven before your eyes how incompetent you are.”

“Because you haven’t hit it off with any guys?” Raven says. “Sophie, we suspected this could happen. We’ve been saying since freshman year that there are no decent guys for us here. Maybe it wasn’t so smart to hope that things could change all because we wanted it to.”

“I’m still not giving up!” Addie stresses. “There are hundreds of boys who attend our school. There’s no way each and every one of them is a jerk. If we looked over my list again—”

“I’m sorry, Addie, but your list sucks,” I grumble.

She purses her lips. “No, it doesn’t. We just have to go over it again and weed out the bad names.”

“You’re new here,” Raven reminds her. “You don’t know the guys like we do.”

“That’s the point,” she insists. “You’re all looking at it negatively because of past experiences, but I’m an objectiveobserver. I can look at the guys with fresh eyes and see who’s good and who isn’t.”

I lift my head a few inches off the bed to exchange glances with Raven and Carly. Maybe she has a point, but didn’t the last few days prove the guys are, in fact, jerks?

“Maybe the problem is the school setting,” Carly muses as she taps her chin. “Everyone sees Sophie as the studious girl who is the first one to raise her hand in class. They assume she’s not fun.”

“Maybe I’m not,” I mutter.

“Of course you are!” Addie says. “We always have tons of fun when you’re around. You make us laugh all the time and bring light into our lives when we feel down. And the way you turn every situation into a romance trope is super fun, too.”

“Agreed,” Raven says. “The problem is the boys.”