Chapter 1
I wasn’t always the kind of girl who wakes up on the first day of summer vacation to find herself on the receiving end of a temporary restraining order. But things got ugly when Joey, my ex, came to an end-of-the-school-year party on Friday night with his new girlfriend—the bleach-blond freshman ho bag he’d been cheating on me with. Until I saw them together, I didn’t know he and his indiscretion had become an actual item. It felt like someone had knocked all the air out of my lungs with a blunt object. What can I say? First I lost my heart. Then I lost my mind.
I stare out the screen door and watch as the patrol car drives away, my face burning with embarrassment. What if Mrs. Friedman is watching from across the street? She doesn’t miss a thing, ever. What a crappy start to a Monday morning.
“This cannot be happening,” I say.
“Rosie, you blew up your boyfriend’s car. What did you expect?” says Matty, our next-door neighbor.
“For the last time, I did not blow up Joey’s car. It caught fire!”
“What’s the difference?”
“Hello, there was no explosion. I was just burning all the stuff he gave me in his driveway.” Why doesn’t anyone understand this? I’ve spent all weekend trying to explain it. “The box wasn’t even near Joey’s car. He was standing right there. I don’t know how it happened.”
“Lighter fluid and stuffed animals. Bad combination,” Matty says.
“Shut up, Matty! I need to think.”
“The thinking ship sailed when you lit that match.”
“It was a lighter and—what are you doing in my house, anyway?” It’s like he doesn’t even pretend to go home anymore. When Matty was six, my mother offered to let him come over after school so his mom didn’t have to pay for child care. Apparently Matty thought that meant forever.
Matty extricates himself from the couch and walks toward the front door, where I’ve been rendered immobile by this latest turn of events. “Take it easy, all right? I’m not the problem, your bad temper is.”
“I don’t have a bad temper.” I look down at my purple toenails, away from Matty’s beady blue-eyed stare. “I’m passionate.”
“Call it whatever makes you feel better. I’ve grown immune to your acerbic wit and biting sarcasm, but lately it’s like you’re . . . I don’t know, hostile?”
Hostile? Where does he get hostile? Okay. Maybe I’m high-strung. I’ll give him that. But at our house, we yell when we’re happy, we yell when we’re upset, we yell when we want someone to pass the remote. It’s what we Catalanos do.
I look down at the paper in my hand. “I guess Joey must’ve called the cops.”
“Ya think?”
I feel like I’ve just done a belly flop on dry land. My parents are going to freak. They already grounded me, indefinitely, after Joey’s mom called Saturday morning to scream about the postparty car fire caused by yours truly. And now there’s a restraining order. At this point, my parents will lock me in a tower until I graduate from high school next June. For a brief second I wonder if I can keep the whole thing a secret. Yeah, right, like that’ll ever work. I couldn’t even burn a box of memories without the police getting involved. I don’t know what’s happening with me lately.
“Maybe it’s a mistake,” I say.
Matty grabs the three-page document from me. “Right. This is for the other Rosalita Ariana Catalano Joey dated, who also blew up his car.”
I cross my arms and scowl as Matty scans the page. “I’ve got to talk to him.”
“You’re to stay away from Joey’s house, his job. There’s to be no written, personal, or electronic communication with the complaining witness by you or anyone you know.” He pauses. “It actually says you are prohibited from returning to the scene of the violence.”
“I’ve got to talk to him,” I repeat.
“Have you been listening?” Matty waves the papers in my face. “Restraining order.”
“But if I can just explain—”
“Save it for your court date in two weeks.”
“What?” Court date? I snatch the papers from him and start flipping through the pages, but my eyes won’t settle on any words. Fruity Pebbles rise in my throat and I start to sweat. I suddenly want to throw something at the TV screen. The View is on—leave it to Matty. Now I have the urge to throw something at the whiny one’s head. Maybe I do have anger issues.
I hand the TRO back to Matty. “I can’t find it.”
“Right here,” he says, pointing to the correct page. “You’ve been ordered to appear before Superior Court Judge Tomlinson in Essex County, New Jersey, to address the allegations of, let’s see, criminal trespass, criminal mischief, harassment, and stalking. Stalking?”