Awkwardly Ever After Read Online Free PDF Page A

didn’t want to do it, exactly. More like she felt she had something to prove to herself.
    I was selfish enough to feel relieved—and proud. Really freaking proud of my best friend for pushing beyond her normal comfort zone.
    â€œAre Jane and Scott coming too?” she asked Mackenzie.
    â€œThey can’t make it. Something about the school paper. Again.”
    Izzie looked disappointed and I felt a quick surge of guilt. Jane and Izzie were no longer just bus buddies with a casual friendship created by a mutual desire not to sit alone. That had all changed when Alex Thompson, the biggest jerk at Smith High School—one who made Patrick look like nothing more than a vaguely irritating moth—ridiculed Izzie’s weight in front of everyone in the school cafeteria. He’d been under the impression that neither of the girls would protest too loudly.
    He had been wrong about a whole lot of things that day.
    I would have given anything to see his expression as good-girl Jane Smith hauled back and slammed her fist right in his face.
    Actually, I would’ve given anything to be there five seconds earlier so that I could have beaten Jane to the punch.
    But I had been stuck trying to come up with a good explanation for Mrs. Paralov as to why I’d been late for her class eight times that semester without mentioning the fact that each morning my daily ritual included making sure my dad wasn’t still so drunk from the night before that he was unable to drive me to school. Or that my dad insisted he was merely coming down with a case of the flu when the binge the night before left him with a particularly nasty hangover.
    Yeah, I had no intention of mentioning any of that.
    Which was why I was stuck making evasive, mm-hmm noises and promising to be more punctual while Jane Smith was defending my best friend.
    The only part of that catastrophe that I witnessed was the aftermath. The way Isobel spent the next few weeks listlessly moving her food around with a fork instead of actually eating it. Izzie still wouldn’t be caught dead at the ice skating rink. Not when that would only increase the risk of encountering Fake and Bake (Mackenzie’s rather fitting nickname for two of the most popular girls in school) along with a whole horde of their Notable cohorts.
    Izzie barely managed to curl her mouth into a lackluster excuse for a smile when she spotted Spencer and Logan walking right toward us. We both knew that she wanted to jackrabbit out of there. I subtly nudged her with my shoulder in what I hoped passed as a silent show of support, while I mentally reviewed the game plan one last time. Isobel’s advice had seemed so simple earlier.
    Distract him with a bet or a dare—some kind of feat to prove his manliness—he’ll probably forget you even exist.
    Brilliant in theory. A whole lot harder in execution with Spencer grinning broadly at the three of us. Especially since I was already smiling back, and not because I had any interest in flirting with him either. There was just something infectious about him. Maybe it was knowing that we could have been ninety-year-old nuns and the megawattage wouldn’t have wavered an iota. Spencer was a natural charmer who enjoyed putting everyone at ease with a few casual jokes. Well, everyone except Izzie. She only appeared more tightly wound than ever as she shoved her glasses higher up her nose.
    â€œHey, Melanie, ” he said, not even trying to disguise how impressed he was with himself for remembering my name. Then again, for all I knew, the golden boy had enough girls in rotation to make my head spin. “How’s it going?”
    â€œUm, fine. Have you met Isobel?” I practically shoved my friend forward in my haste to distract him. “She enjoys, um . . . reading, solving difficult math problems, and—”
    â€œLong walks on the beach?”
    I grimaced. So much for playing it cool and keeping it casual. I was