Free Rotten Apple by Rebecca Eckler

hadn’t suggested they go see it together. He’d just said, “Maybe I’ll check it out.”
    “I’m not good at guessing,” Apple told Happy on the phone.
    “Just take a guess!” Happy demanded.
    “Washing your hair?” Apple guessed.
    “No. Try again.”
    “Um, reading a magazine,” Apple guessed again.
    “God, you really are bad at guessing,” Happy laughed. “You weren’t joking.”
    “I know. So just tell me!” Apple demanded.
    “Fine, I will. I’ve been messaging back and forth with Zen,” she said.
    “What?” Apple said, sitting up now.
    “I know! When I got home from school today, I logged onto my computer to see if I could order this pair of boots and suddenly an e-mail popped up from Zen. He even sent me pictures of him surfing in Australia. You should see him with his shirt off,” Happy giggled.
    Apple was stunned. All
she
had been doing was trying to study.
    Apple had thought that maybe studying would force her to get her mind off the fact that Plan Z had gottenher nowhere in the past four days. Apple wondered if her mother’s self-help advice had ever worked for anyone, because it certainly hadn’t worked for her. Why was something that seemed so easy on paper so hard in practice?
    “Wow. I can’t believe he did that!” Apple said, hoping her tone came off more like excitement for her friend than like shock that her Super-Sized Zen Crush was IM’ing Happy instead of her.
    “I know! So I wrote him back and we just started chatting away,” continued Happy.
    “About what?” Apple asked. What did Happy and Zen have to chat about, anyway?
    “Oh, school, our families, stuff like that. I even told him about Dr. Caffeine.”
    “You did not!” Apple said, shocked.
    Dr. Caffeine had been Happy’s therapist for years. Happy called her Dr. Caffeine because she offered her a can of pop or a coffee every time Happy came in for her weekly appointment. Seeing a therapist was the only thing Happy’s parents demanded that she and Sailor do on a regular basis. Apple supposed they felt guilty they were never around, and that making Happy and Sailor see a therapist made them feel like better parents somehow, like they really did care.
    Happy had never told anyone except Brooklyn and Apple about her weekly appointments with Dr. Caffeine. She was embarrassed about them. So it surprised Apple that Happy had told Zen, a classmate she had only started to have conversations with. How was he suddenly in the inner circle of Happy’s secrets?
    “He’s just so easy to talk to,” Happy gushed. “He makes it so easy to open up to him. He’s a really good listener. He’s kind of like you, actually. And he’s so sweet too. You’re not going to believe what he’s planning to do.” Happy paused, waiting to be asked.
    “Tell me,” Apple said sullenly.
    “Well, you know that clothing drive the school is organizing, where they’re setting up a table at the country club to collect clothes for the homeless shelters?”
    “Yeah,” Apple said. She vaguely remembered hearing an announcement about it over the speakers at school and seeing some posters on the walls.
    “Well, he’s actually thinking about doing it. He’s giving up his free time to sit at a table in the country club! It just shows that he has a kind heart, you know? Here I am ordering designer boots online because I’m too lazy even to go to a store, and he’s planning to collect people’s old clothes to give to shelters. It just shows how thoughtful he is, doesn’t it?”
    “Yeah, it does.” Apple really had to agree. Not like she hadn’t known that. She had followed Zen’s moves for years. Apple knew that Zen was always volunteering whenever the school needed people to raise money for charity or to answer phones for fundraising drives.
    “Well, I just had to let you know,” Happy told Apple. “I had to tell
someone
, and of course it had to be you! And now I’d better get back to reading too, because I just spent an hour