Corrine is dating her ex!

“Who, Rachel?” I asked.

“No, Corrine! She’s dating Steve! MY Steve!” Talia hurled a pillow against the wall in frustration.

“Is it such a big deal?” I asked, “I mean, you dumped him.”

Talia wheeled to face me, snarling, “That’s not the point! I mean, sure, it’s kind of whorish for her to do this kind of thing to her friend, but I can get over Corrine dating my ex. Any other ex would be fine. But Steve is a huge motherfucking asshole who I hate and he doesn’t deserve to live. How am I supposed to be friends with Corrine when I know she’s dating a douchey, poseur, wannabe tough-guy, lying, cheating bastard? I mean, did she learn nothing from my mistake?”

I shrugged, knowing better than to interrupt Talia mid-rant. She stomped around her room for the rest of the afternoon, recounting for me non-stop each of Steve’s myriad offenses to the human race: His snide misogyny, his infidelity, and his full-of-shit “**** dealer” persona (turns out Steve was actually just a spoiled rich guy who lived with his parents and sold weed in order to feel tough).

I shook my head, overwhelmed. “Remind me again why you ever dated this guy?”

Talia’s eyes avoided mine, and she hurriedly muttered under her breath, “Because he was sexy and confident and I fell for the whole ‘I’m so mysterious and dangerous’ thing even though it turned out to be a complete lie. And he let me drive his Porsche sometimes.”

I rolled my eyes in response, and Talia threw up her hands in defeat: “I know, I know! But what are we going to do, Ian? This is gonna tear me and Corrine apart. I can’t be around that guy again.”

I put a hand on Talia’s shoulder and assured her, “Nothing like that will happen, Talia. Nothing weird happened to us all when you were dating this guy, right? So Corrine is going out on one date with your repulsive ex-boyfriend, doesn’t mean we’ll be seeing him around everywhere.”

I was wrong.

For the next week, Steve started tagging along every time our group got together. He even swung by our high school during lunch to eat with all of us. It wasn’t long before we all got more than our fill of his unique “charm.” I admit, maybe my perception of the guy was colored by my jealousy of the fact that he got to date Corrine, but I’ve never wanted to strangle another human being so badly in my life, not even the thugs who’d put me in the hospital a month and a half ago.

AND WHY DIDN’T HE OWN ANYTHING WITH FUCKING SLEEVES?!

I mean, I get that any guy with arms like Vin Diesel wants to show them off, but come on.

We all did our best to be civil, but one-by-one the rest of the group just started refusing to go anywhere if Steve was coming along. Talia went first, as expected, but later that very same day, Stephanie and Simon left after the fiftieth time Steve tried imitating Simon with a racist accent. Elizabeth followed after her BFF, and Amy lasted about two more days before she finally snapped and got up in Steve’s face, calling him on his bullshit, imploring Corrine to ditch the loser if she ever wanted to see any of us again, then walking off—leaving me alone with Corrine and her outstanding choice of a boyfriend.

Despite feeling like a third wheel, I tried to stay in the hopes that maybe I could find something I actually liked about Steve. Maybe I could split my time between Corrine and the others? The thought of losing Corrine as a friend was apocalyptic to me; there was no person on earth who could make me laugh as happily and as easily as that girl.