Four Doors Down
By
Emma Doherty
Genre: Young Adult
Release
Date: July 5, 2016
Becca McKenzie is
just trying to make it through her senior year of high school. She has good
friends and a gorgeous boyfriend but Ryan Jackson, the bane of her existence,
keeps popping up everywhere.
She doesn't care
that they were best friends for years. She doesn't care that their moms are
close and therefore she hears more about him that she'd ever care to know. She
doesn't care that their mutual friend, Jake, keeps pushing them all to hang out
together, and she especially doesn't care that the rest of the school bows down
and worships him.
Becca decided years
ago that he wasn't worth her time and nothing, NOTHING, is going to change her
mind.
“Come on, tell me,
Becs.” There it is again, that old nickname. I turn my head to look at him.
He’s studying me intently.
“Don’t call me
that.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s not
my name.”
“Yes it is,” he
says with a smile.
“No. My name is
Rebecca. Or Becca. Not Becs. It’s too…” I pause. “It’s too familiar,” I tell
him with a sigh.
“Hey, Ryan,” two
girls greet him, smiling flirtatiously as they walk past us. My eyes follow
them, glad for the distrac-tion, but when I turn back to Ryan, he hasn’t even
glanced in their direction. His eyes are still focused on mine.
I raise my eyebrows
at him. “You don’t want to follow them and see if there’s a spare classroom you
can take advantage of?”
He smirks at me and
glances away briefly before looking back into my eyes. “I’d rather talk to
you,” he says quietly.
I turn to the side
and see Ryan approaching with Jake and try not to pull a face. He’s glancing at
Katie and his friends suspiciously. “What are you guys talking about?” he asks
as soon as he reaches us.
I wait for Katie to
reply, but she just stares back at him smiling.
“Just about how
much we can’t stand each other,” I inform Ryan.
He glances over at
me. This is the first time we’ve spoken since our fight at the beach. I mean,
let’s face it: we definitely didn’t speak in Sal’s, we just shot each other
dirty looks, and I’m still annoyed at him for the way he spoke about Charlie.
I don’t understand
him. Was he always this interfering?
“Oh come on, Becca,
he’s not that bad,” Jake says, slapping Ryan on the back and coming to his
defense.
“Well not compared
to Adolf Hitler, he isn’t,” I instantly reply to chuckles from his friends.
“You guys are back
to being friends again,” Jake continues.
“Please,” I scoff.
“I’d rather go for a sleepover at Jessica Murphy’s.”
Ryan snickers and
crosses his arms. “Yeah? Maybe you could play dodgeball again?”
My mouth falls open
as I hear the laughter from his friends. I can’t believe he’s just brought that
up again. I’m already humiliated enough over that whole incident.
“Fuck you, Ryan!”
“He wishes,”
someone says from behind me. I swing my head around but I have no idea who said
it and they’re all looking away, trying not to laugh. I immediately get nervous
and have flashbacks to teen movies where the popular kids play a prank on the
dork to make everyone else laugh.
Something is
definitely going on here.
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