TMI by Patty Blount Page A

room. Nicole’s off-key shower singing made her smile. Her date must have been more fun than she’d shared. That was something at least. But then Bailey’s smile faded. She didn’t have a teen daughter of her own, and yet guys didn’t stick with her very long either. Maybe it was a Grant curse. Maybe she should just accept reality and stop dreaming about love and happily-ever-afters and be more like Meg. Practical, realistic, determined Meg, who wasn’t going to let any guy sway her from her plans, including the guy next door who was madly, passionately, and pointlessly in love with her.
    Bailey clicked through channels for five solid minutes before she huffed out a heavy sigh and tossed the remote to her comfy full-sized bed and wondered why she even bothered to try watching TV because there was never anything good on unless it was Thursday night when The Vampire Diaries aired. She thought about playing Xbox, but what fun would it be without Simon? She logged into Facebook and read the status updates her friends had posted. No, it wasn’t true that she’d bloodied Simon’s nose. No, it wasn’t true that she’d caught Simon with Caitlyn’s pom-poms and— gasp —of course it wasn’t true that she was pregnant.
    God! She rolled her eyes. People should get a life. She abandoned Facebook and decided to update her blog. She typed her name and password and waited for the site to appear. Her blog had been a work in progress, as Meg always said, since the day she’d started it. At one point, she’d called it “Grant’s Random Ramblings”—that had been when she was in her heavy metal rock phase and had a mad crush on a satellite radio DJ named Grant Random. She’d written a three-part series on stamp collecting—that’s when the site had seen its lowest dip in visitors ever—and then switched to reviewing her favorite TV show episodes. Those were always fun. But lately, the blog had become a place where she could just muse and vent and wonder and dream, which is why she now called it “Take It for Granted.”
    It’s been a hard day. I guess days are always hard after a breakup, especially a breakup you don’t really want. But when the guy you’re seeing, the guy you think could be “The One,” suddenly starts looking at you like he’s bothered and would rather get cavities filled instead of be with you, don’t you have to ask yourself which is harder—breaking up or staying together? I’m lucky to have a friend like Meg who forces me to call it what it is—total crap! When you do that, when you have that, even the hard stuff is a little bit easier.
    Bailey twirled her hair and bit her thumbnail while she considered how to respond to the various rumors posted on Facebook. She finally decided that complete denial was the best idea. She wrote a paragraph on the rumors and then switched to tips on removing red Gatorade from expensive jeans—you know, just in case Caitlyn decided to try it on anybody else. Her thoughts turned to her absent dad and she added one last thought before she posted the update.
    Times like this are when I miss having a dad the most. I wonder if he’d be like Bella’s dad, you know—all I’m-a-cop-so-I-know-how-to-use-a-gun. Or would he come up to my room with a bowl of ice cream and a movie and tell me the guy’s a total loser for not seeing the girl he sees and keep handing me tissues while I cried away my broken heart? Or maybe he’d slam his hand on the table and shout, “I never liked that boy anyway.”
    Bailey thought about talking to Gramps about Simon, but the one time she’d talked to him about a boy, he turned sheet white and fled, tossing something that sounded like “Go ask your mother!” over his shoulder on the way out.
    She published the new blog update and trolled her favorite social networks for a little