Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick Page A

Nora.”
     
    I stopped walking and turned around to face him. “You’re gonna break up with her?”
     
    “I’m bored.”
     
    “Does she know you’re gonna break up with her?”
     
    “She’s got to see it coming. She can’t possibly be having fun anymore. We have nothing to say to each other.”
     
    I turned back toward the rack of dresses and sipped my vanilla milkshake. “I feel bad for her.”
     
    “What do you mean, you feel bad for her? You hate her. You think she’s dumb.”
     
    “Sure, she’s dumb, but she has feelings. You know, clearly she’s really into you. I just feel bad.”
Poor Nora Bittenbender,
I thought, pulling at the skirt of a zebra-print dress, pondering Paul and me for a second or two. “So have you thought about how you’re gonna do it?”
     
    “Do it?”
     
    “You know, break it off.”
     
    “Well, we’re not even really together.”
     
    “So?”
     
    “So I just figured I could slowly pull back—you know, that way no one really gets their feelings hurt.”
     
    I shook my head, incensed. “That’s the shittiest thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t do that. What, so, that girl goes around wondering whether she’s still with you or not until she sees you screwing with some other poor, dumb girl—is that it? Just so you can spare yourself the awkwardnessof having a fifteen-minute conversation where you say to her, ‘I’m sorry you’re sweet but this just isn’t going to work out’??? What’s wrong with you?” I spun on my heels and beelined for the display case at the front of the store.
     
    Nils followed. “Hey! Hey, Crazy? You’re acting insane.” He grabbed me by my arm. “I’ll break up with her, okay? Face-to-face. The whole ‘pulling back’ thing was just an idea.”
     
    I softened. I looked at him.
     
    “What’s with you? Are you okay? Why do you care so much about this all of a sudden?”
     
    I shrugged. “I’m trying to be more compassionate, okay? I felt bad for her that day in the car when we just left her standing alone in her driveway.”
     
    Nils took a long sip from his drink. “You stand alone in your driveway all the time.” He slipped an arm around my waist and drew me toward him. “Hey so, Paul Bennett?”
     
    My insides went cold. “What about him?” I asked. I’d stopped laughing.
Does he know something? How could he possibly know something?
I squirmed free and hurried toward the front of the store.
     
    Nils followed. “You know those glasses he wears? Those aviators?”
     
    I was at the jewelry display now, fondling a string of faux pearls. “I don’t know. I mean, I guess, yeah.”
     
    “He kept those things on all through Russell’s lecture today. Who does that? Seriously. Who keeps their sunglasses on indoors? In
class
?”
     
    “I dunno,” I said quickly, nervously, trying on the fake pearls, then hanging them back on their hook. I pointed toward the display case, eager to change subjects. “See that necklace?”
     
    “Which one?”
     
    I touched the glass. “The one with green pendant.”
     
    “I see it, yeah.”
     
    “I think it would look great on me, don’t you?”
     
    We were both bent down now, looking at the necklace. Nils bumped his body against mine and I swayed to one side. “Sure I do. Green is your color.”
     
    I rolled out my hand. “Lend me ten bucks, moneybags? I spent the last of my cash on our milkshakes.”
     
    Nils pulled a twenty out of his pocket and placed it in my open palm. “You’re the best,” I said, cupping his cheek with one hand. “Excuse me,” I called, flagging down the Goodwill store clerk with a wave of Nils’s crisp twenty-dollar bill. “Can I see something in the display case?”
     
    Nils lifted the lid off his cup, downing the remains of his shake. I watched him sideways, bracing myself for more Paul talk.
     
    “What?” he asked, feeling my glare.
     
    “Nothing,” I countered, relieved. Then I turned back to the clerk, who was now