Free BFF Breakup by Taylor Morris Page A

which was that she didn’t like them, and for no good reason that I knew of.
    Susanna dropped the remote and turned to me.“Look, Mad, we know she’s your best friend and all, but seriously—what’s with her attitude? She’s actually kind of rude.”
    â€œYeah,” Julia said, her eyes looking nervously from me to Susanna.
    â€œYou guys just don’t get her humor. She’s very sarcastic. She’s actually really funny,” I said, even though her sarcasm had been getting on my nerves lately.
    â€œThat’s it,” Susanna said, like she’d just realized something. “She’s sarcastic. It’s like everything she says has to be some snarky remark.”
    â€œThe other day at lunch,” Natalie said, “I told her my mom had the same shoes as her and she was like, ‘Yeah, just what I want to hear.’ I couldn’t believe it. I mean, I was just saying .”
    â€œI don’t know what her deal is lately,” I said, feeling a slight twinge of guilt. But I told myself it wasn’t anything I wouldn’t say to her face. “Her sarcasm thing is getting pretty old.”
    Always one for stating it like it is, Susanna said, “It’s obnoxious.”
    â€œYeah,” I said. “I guess it is.”
    â€œMadeline said her mom was trying to bake them cookies last weekend,” Susanna said to Natalie and Julia.
    â€œSeriously?” Julia asked. “What are you, four?”
    I rolled my eyes like I thought it was dumb, too. “I know. But we basically told her to get lost. Her mom is nice but kind of lame. She sells these weird candles and incense and room fresheners. But get this; she doesn’t sell them in stores or online. You have to buy directly from her.” The girls were all listening to me, and it was like I couldn’t stop myself. Why was I saying these things about Brooke’s mom, who’d never been anything but nice to me? “She hardly makes any money doing it. They’re practically broke.”
    I don’t know why I said it. I wasn’t even sure it was true. But they all nodded like they agreed with me, so I let it go and told myself to keep my mouth shut when it came to talking about Brooke around Susanna and the other girls.
    Later, we watched a movie about chupacabras, then dared each other to run all the way to the creek alone, without a flashlight. (No one did it but I silently betted that, if Brooke were here, she would have.)
    Natalie and Julia brought their sleeping bags and Susanna and I slept in my bed. “Stay down there, my loyal subjects,” she teased Natalie and Julia as they crawled into their sleeping bags.
    â€œWe must keep them at our feet,” I said. And then Susanna and I looked at each other and said at the exactsame time, “Pedicures!” We both got out of bed and I opened the bathroom drawer that held all my polishes. We each chose a different color and stayed up for another hour, concentrating on giving each other the perfect pedicure while teasing Natalie and Julia that their feet stunk. It ended up being a great night. So much fun, in fact, that I sort of forgot all about Brooke.

14 BROOKE
    M ADELINE AND I ALWAYS SPENT FRIDAY NIGHTS together. I couldn’t remember a weekend we didn’t start together. It’s not like it was a law or anything, but it just always . . . was . I didn’t care that she’d made some (completely superficial and boring) new friends that weren’t my friends, and that they invited her and not me to their (probably completely superficial and boring) sleepover on Friday.
    But still, something wasn’t right, especially after our bomb of a sleepover last weekend. I tried notto over-think it because the rest of the week had been fine. Once we hung out on our own, we had fun just like always. I tried not to think she was starting to like them more than me, but the nagging feeling pestered me.
    I