Don't Hate the Player

by Alexis Nedd

Despite his crumbling, dead-bee insides, Jake admired the way she walked away from him. Emilia Romero had never second-guessed a walk away once in her entire life. He could just tell.

This is coming back for sure

“Hey! Hi. It’s me, Jake!” he said, like that wasn’t the entire reason I was at the bus stop in the first place.

Everyone always expects me to have a quick answer to everything, and he’s just waiting to pay attention to whatever I say next, whenever it comes. Space, I think. This is what it’s like when someone gives me space.

“Hey,” I reply when I’m finally upright. Through the door, Jake holds out one of the coffees. “It’s not matcha,” he says reassuringly. “It’s black, and I have sugar packets in my pocket. Unless they exploded ’cause my jeans are too tight, then I just have sugar in my pocket. These pants are clean, though, so we can just like . . .” He mimes emptying his pocket out carefully into a cup and makes a pshhh sound. “A lint latte. Sounds great.” “A lint-te.”

Thjs is the golden retriver bf yall were talking about i see

Okay, it was a little funny that the pesky guy in Crystal Cathedral was Muddy,

Called it

“Maybe you need to let go of the idea that your ex is a psychopath out to get you and let people have nice things.”

OMG I CALLD THIS TOO!?!?!@)$

Matt cobbled together an impressive emoji hieroglyph that included brown-girl-kissing-white-boy, video game controller, heart with smaller hearts inside it, interrobang, blue heart, red heart, robot head (?), and a party hat.

Yall dont understand matt is just so special to me

“Hey, Lia,” he replies quickly. I’m the one who has to do something hard here, so why does he look nervous?

Connor cheating scandal???

But Matt texted me, and I was like ‘hey, I’m bringing Emilia’s homework on Friday, so if you want me to bring her a message I could make a little something happen for our boy Jake, if you know what I mean.’ ” “I didn’t,” Jake adds, “know what she meant.

“My guess was carolers,” Dad adds, bringing coffee to my friends at the kitchen table. “Then I remembered it’s October. Then I thought: Halloween carolers.”

His hands are sweaty again, and I love it. Damp hands for life, sign me up.

Just like me fr

I think I see Matt attempting to hold a sweatshirt over Penny’s hair while she bounces up and down with her fists held high.

love them