I keep up my life of avoidance for almost a week. Which is a pretty amazing feat when you think about it. It isn’t until Friday night at around one a.m. that the jig’s finally up. I’m in my room getting into my pajamas when Drew knocks on my door. Jasmine’s at work, and Simone’s still at the library, where I left her studying for her American history midterm.

I freeze in the middle of tying my hair back. Fuck. It has to be one of the boys, and seeing how it’s one in the morning on a Friday night, it’s a pretty safe bet to assume James is out, looking for the next victim’s virginity.

I ignore the knock and stay very still.

“Ally?” Drew says, knocking again.

“Who is it?” I ask, trying to sound like I’m sleeping and hoping he’ll go away. Then I realize this is a terrible plan, since he probably heard me come in two seconds ago, and even though the door’s shut, I’m sure he can tell my light is on from the crack under the door. Ugh.

“It’s Drew,” he says. I imagine him standing in the hall, using one hand to knock on the door, the other to clutch a copy of the school paper, ready to confront me.

“Um, just a second,” I say. “I’m, uh, changing.” Shit. Should not have said changing. Changing could possibly remind him of me changing in his bed, and that is the last thing I want to discuss. I rush to the mirror over my dresser and check my reflection. I run a brush through my hair and put on some lip gloss. Not that I care. What I look like, I mean. But since this could possibly be the last time Drew and I converse, since he obviously knows I’m “secretly obsessed” with him, I might as well look cute. I roll down the top of my gray pajama pants to show off a strip of my stomach. Although this may not be the best idea, after my recent brownie/Chinese food/pizza binges.

I’ve been drowning my sorrows in food, figuring it’s a better drug than speed and/or Ecstasy. Although if I ever did decide to switch my drug of choice to either one of those, I wouldn’t have a problem, since when I first got here, one of James’s friends asked me if I wanted to score. I thought he was propositioning me for sex, until James cleared it up later. That was before he had sex with Simone and dumped her. I’m currently not speaking to him. Neither is Jasmine. We’re all on asshole strike.