How to Take the Ex Out of Ex-Boyfriend by Janette Rallison

and Dante to clean out the garage. I’m planning on having a garage sale next weekend.”
    â€œBut we were going to have a campaign meeting there too—you know, to help Dante.”
    â€œAt the mall?” Gabby’s voice turned incredulous. “You want to hang out with your friends and your boyfriend at the mall and call it a campaign meeting?” She shook her head like she couldn’t believe I’d suggested it. “I need your help here. You can schedule a mall trip some other time.”
    I glanced at Dante. Apparently he hadn’t told our parents that Jesse had switched loyalties, and I didn’t feel strong enough or numb enough to do it now.
    Dante had been talking with Dad while Gabby and I spoke, but he tuned in during Gabby’s last comment. “A campaign meeting at the mall?” he asked. “Sorry, I don’t want to trail your friends around and watch them shop.”
    â€œWe wouldn’t be shopping the entire time,” I said.
    Gabby leaned forward, her eyes glinting. “No one’s going to the mall tomorrow. You’re cleaning out the garage.”
    I didn’t even try to appeal to my dad. I’d learned from experience that he doesn’t concern himself with these types of parenting details. Whenever I ask him if I can go anywhere, he generally answers with something horrible, like, “Well if it’s all right with Gabby, I don’t mind.”
    So I let the subject drop. But the next day I told Dante I’d pay him to clean out my half of the garage after school, and I caught a ride with Daphne to the mall. I wasn’t trying to be defiant, it just seemed like a practical solution, especially now when I wanted to be with people who cared about me. I needed it.
    If I had told Gabby about my breakup with Jesse, she wouldn’t have consoled me. She would have told me all the ways I had handled the situation wrong and then made me go clean out the garage. Besides, we’d be home before Gabby got off work, and she’d never be the wiser. But just in case, I turned off my cell phone.
    When we arrived at the food court, Charity and Raine were already there waiting at a table by Panda Express. Charity looked behind me. “Is Dante coming?”
    I shook my head. “He’s caught in a Gabby work vortex, but we can brainstorm and then tell him what we came up with.”
    Raine picked up a pencil and hovered it over a notebook. “We went over a few campaign ideas while we waited for you to get here. Exactly how much do you plan on spending for posters, buttons, that sort of thing?”
    I shrugged. “I don’t know.”
    Raine tapped the pencil against her notebook. “You’re the campaign manager, haven’t you talked to Dante about it?”
    â€œNot really,” I said.
    Raine let out a disgruntled sigh to let me know, I suppose, that I was a lousy campaign manager. “Wilson will spend a lot,” she said. “He’s got money and his family name to uphold. If Dante wants to compete, he’ll need to put out some cash.”
    â€œMoney isn’t Dante’s image,” I said. “He’s running against that sort of thing. His posters should show he’s an everyday student.”
    â€œThe everyday student who rides a motorcycle and wears a black leather jacket,” Charity said.
    Charity’s parents won’t let her ride on a motorcycle, because they think motorcycles are too dangerous and borderline rebellious. Dante once offered her a ride home and she had to refuse him.
    This has caused Dante to give her no end of grief about the subject. When she’s at our house, he refers to his bike as either “the death trap” or “the Demonmobile.” Sometimes he lets out a possessed-sounding cackle and pretends he’s trying to get her. At some point during her visits, she usually ends up hitting him.
    â€œGiovanna’s right,” Daphne