Page 108 of The Carrie Diaries (The Carrie Diaries 1)

“Told ya,” Maggie says triumphantly. “Can you please act normal now and admit that you hate her guts?”

Day Two: Wake up shaken and angry, having dreamed all night about trying to punch Sebastian in the face and being unable to connect.

Lie in my bed until the last minute. Cannot believe I still have to deal with this. Will it ever be over?

Surely they’ll be in school today.

I can’t skip assembly and calculus two days in a row.

/> Arrive at school. Decide I need a cigarette before I can face them.

Apparently, Sebastian feels the same way. He’s there, in the barn, sitting at the picnic table with Lali. And Walt.

“Hi,” he says casually.

“Oh, good,” Walt exclaims nervously. “Do you have a cigarette?”

“No,” I reply, my eyes narrowing. “Don’t you?”

Lali has yet to acknowledge me.

“Have one of mine,” Sebastian says, holding out his pack. I look at him suspiciously as I take a cigarette. He flips open his lighter, the one with the rearing horse etched on the side, and holds out the flame.

“Thanks,” I say, inhaling and immediately exhaling a puff of smoke.

What are they doing here? For a second, I have a vague hope that they’re going to apologize, that Sebastian is going to say he made a mistake, that what I saw two nights ago wasn’t what I thought. But instead, he snakes his arm around Lali’s wrist and holds her hand. Her eyes glide toward me as her lips form an uneasy smile.

It’s a test. They’re testing me to find out how far they can push me until I explode.

I look away.

“So.” Sebastian turns to Walt. “Lali tells me you made a big announcement on New Year’s Eve—”

“Oh, shut up,” Walt declares. He tosses his cigarette and walks out. I raise my arm and drop mine to the ground, stubbing it out with my toe.

Walt is waiting for me outside. “I have one word for you,” he says. “Revenge.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Pretty Pictures

A week passes. But every time I see Lali, my heart races and I’m seized by a queer sense of dread, as if my life is in danger. I do my best to avoid her, which means I’m constantly watching out for her, scanning the halls for the top of her feathered hair, looking over my shoulder for her red truck, even bending down to check the shoes beneath the closed doors in the bathroom stalls.

I know Lali so well—her walk, the way she waves her hands next to her face when she’s making a point, the defiant incisor that sticks out just a tad too far—I could pick Lali out of a crowd a mile away.

Even so, on two occasions we’ve inadvertently ended up face-to-face. Each time I gasped and we both quickly looked away, sliding past each other like silent icebergs.

I watch Lali a lot when she’s not looking. I don’t want to, but I can’t help it.

She and Sebastian don’t sit with us at lunch anymore.

Half the time, they avoid the cafeteria, and sometimes, walking up the hill to the barn before a break, I’ll spot Sebastian’s yellow Corvette pulling away from the school grounds with Lali in the passenger seat. When they do eat in the cafeteria, they sit with the two Jens, Donna LaDonna, Cynthia Viande, and Tommy Brewster. Maybe it’s where Sebastian always thought he belonged, but couldn’t get there with me. Maybe it’s why he picked Lali instead.

Meanwhile, Jen P is behaving strangely. The other day, she actually joined us at lunch, giggling and acting like she and I were good friends. “What happened with you and Sebastian?” she asked, all girlish concern. “I thought you guys were so cute together.”

The insincerity—the hypocrisy—is spectacular.

Then she asked Maggie and Peter if they wanted to be on the Senior Prom Committee.