As they passed the car, Julie tried not to look. She knew whose car that was—it belonged to Matt's rally girl. And she had seen despite herself that it wasn't empty. Who else would be in it? The girl had made it very clear that she had no intention of being only a rally girl; she had made sure Julie had heard about it. If there was someone in the car with the girl, it had to be Matt. There was no point in looking closer to confirm it.
Of course, Tyra wasn't in Julie's head and had no idea what she was thinking, so she didn't stay silent about it. "Isn't that your ex?"
Now there was no help for it—Julie had to look, because Tyra was looking.
Who was she kidding? She had been looking anyway, little as she wanted to, for the same reason people who slowed down to look at an accident by the side of the road were called rubber-neckers. She was fascinated by the train wreck that used to be her life, going on just in front of her. She couldn't help herself.
So she looked. And she saw that the two people in the front of the car were kissing. Passionately. The girl's long fingers with the carefully manicured nails were curved around the back of Matt's neck.
Julie swallowed, clenching her teeth together to avoid remembering what that felt like. The sweet, soft touch of his lips. The warmth of his tongue. The way he shivered when you stroked his neck with the tips of your fingers, shivered and moved closer to you and kissed you harder. Julie knew just how to do that. She had practiced it, intoxicated by the feeling of it, by her own effect on him, by the electric energy she could feel in him.
She had given that all up, she reminded herself. Of her own free will. Because she had been … what, bored? Maybe not bored, exactly. But the Swede had been different. New. Exciting. Where Matt's attention had become familiar after months of going out together, there had been a special tingle in knowing she had attracted the interest of an older boy, someone exotic. Someone not quite Dillon. Matt was all Dillon, from the football to the family to the slow drawl of his voice to the nice manners he displayed when talking to adults. And the Swede had been none of those things; Julie hadn't known exactly what he was, to tell the truth. She had wanted to, though. She had hungered for his kisses, for a different taste and a different feel. Like Matt was apple pie and the Swede was something covered in chocolate whose ingredients were a total mystery.
Now that was over, and the Swede was, if still a mystery, also a memory, and Matt was in a strange car kissing his rally girl, and all Julie wanted was to be back at his kitchen table, with his grandma watching TV in the next room, eating apple pie.