Wicked Jealous: A Love Story Read Online Free Page A

concussion and I’d be able to miss the chemistry pop quiz that was scheduled for tomorrow. Apparently, Mr. Weiner, our teacher, never got the memo that announcing pop quizzes ahead of time kind of defeated the whole “pop” of it all. I liked to think that chemistry was a waste of time, since in 245 days—which is when I would be graduating, not that I was keeping track or anything—the odds of my having to call on my knowledge from the periodic table of elements were about as great as coming across a rhombus or isosceles trapezoid.
    After Josh walked away, I went back to my book, happy to see that Parisian women from the 1920s hadn’t been stick thin, either. Even more evidence to support my argument that I had totally been born in the wrong country.
    “You know, if you start feeling dizzy or start having sensitivity to light or noise, you might want to go to the nurse and get that checked out,” a voice from behind me said in my ear. “Those are two of the main symptoms of a concussion.”
    Startled, I slammed the book shut. Mostly because the photo I had just flipped to happened to be of a woman who, when my eyes adjusted, I realized was totally naked. I whipped my head around, butting my forehead right up against Jason Frank’s.
    Great. Of all the people to smack foreheads with, I had to choose one of the most popular guys in the grade and the leader of what Nicola liked to call the Testosterone Twits. Jason had been on the varsity squad of like seventeen different sports teams since kindergarten. The TTs were so popular that even though they were only juniors like me, they got to sit up on the Ramp in the cafeteria, which literally put the popular kids above the rest of us mere mortals. Jason grimaced as he rubbed his forehead. “And maybe I’ll go with you.” As he smiled, I saw that one of his top front teeth was a little bit chipped. It was nice to know that someone so perfect wasn’t so perfect. Although the way his curly dark hair framed his blue eyes? That was a little on the perfect side. “You ever think about trying out for the football team?” I glanced down. The minute the question hit the air, I could see he felt bad. “Not, you know, because . . .” He made some weird gesture with his hands, which I assumed was shorthand for “that gut’s not from 100 calorie snack paks, is it?” “I meant because your head is so hard you wouldn’t even need a helmet.” He cringed as he realized that didn’t sound so good, either. “You know, I think—”
    “You’re going to stop talking while you’re ahead?” I suggested.
    He nodded. “Exactly.” He stood up. “Well, see you in history,” he said as he started to walk away. He stopped and turned. “By the way, nausea is another symptom,” he went on. “And sleepiness.”
    I nodded. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
    He nodded back. “You should.”
    As I watched him walk away, I had to admit I did feel a little nauseous. It wasn’t every day a popular person talked to me.
    Let alone a Testosterone Twit.

two
    “Obviously Jason Frank is completely smitten with you,” Nicola said for what had to be the tenth time as we drove to my house in Brentwood after school. Although her mom had wanted Nicola to get an after-school job so she could learn the value of money and buy her own car, like she had been forced to do back in England when she was growing up, Nicola’s dad’s guilt over leaving them for his acupuncturist, selling his software company for millions of dollars, and moving to Sedona, Arizona, where he now made sand paintings, had resulted in a nice wad of cash for a car.
    Unlike most kids at Castle Heights who drove BMWs or Priuses or—in this hippy-dippy girl India’s case—an old VW bus, Nicola put her money toward a candy-apple-red 1976 Cadillac, which, according to my dad, was the exact car that my grandfather and every other old Jewish guy in Florida had driven about twenty years earlier. Although it