Don't You Wish Read Online Free PDF Page B

like wearing flower petals and air.
    I lift the material to reveal my toes. Well, someone’s toes. Toes painted a bruising violet and decorated with teensy-tiny rhinestones in the shape of a teardrop.
    I wiggle; they move. They
are
my teardrop toes.
    I pinch the flesh on my arm, hard, and feel the pain. Does that mean I’m awake and this isn’t a dream? It has to.
    Or … No other explanation even suggests itself to me.
    I take a few steps. My bare feet hit cool hard wood, dark and gleaming, and then sink into the edges of a plush throw rug in the middle of the room.
    There are shoes everywhere—heels and wedgies and brightly colored sneakers. As I navigate my way over them, I notice the inside of one sandal, decorated with interlocking C’s and the word
Chanel
.
    Over by the Hollywood Barcalounger, a door is partially open, all dark inside. The closet? Curious, I make my way over and give a nudge.
    Without me touching a single switch, soft rose-colored lighting lifts from the floor up, like an electric sunrise, illuminating … Oh, my God.
    For a second, I can’t breathe.
    This is somebody’s
closet
.
    No, no. Calling this a closet is like calling the Empire State Building an anthill. It’s the size of my whole room and then some. One entire wall and around a corner is for shoes and bags, and someone has filled every inch. On the other side, jeans and tops and dresses and
stuff
are hung sloppilyon green and blue satin hangers. In the middle, the open drawers of a huge four-sided dresser spew more clothes.
    It’s like Forever 21 has dropped out of the sky.
    I back out and close the door, and the lights dim like in a stage production. That effect is just too much.
    There’s one more door in the room, and I’m starting to feel like Alice in Wonderland. Pretty certain it’s a bathroom, I turn the knob to find I’m right.
    Inside, acres of creamy marble, a tub the size of most people’s pools, a glassed-in shower with—holy crap—six showerheads? And one giant one at the top? It’s like a car wash in there.
    Fluffy white towels are dropped all over the floor, little mountain ranges you’d have to climb to get to the vanity.
    And the
vanity
. Like being in Sephora after an earthquake. Every inch is covered with products and brushes and earrings and more
stuff
. Milky white ball lights surround the mirror, giving it that Hollywood feel again.
    The
mirror
.
    Do I even dare look? I mean, I have to, right? But surely that’ll be the thing that ends the dream, and I don’t want it to end. Everything will melt away, and I’ll look like someone else or some old witch and the magic spell will be broken. Even if I’m not a witch, seeing Annie Nutter in this setting would just be a big fat letdown.
    I study the purple toes. The teardrop. The clump of towel by my feet. Slowly I lift my gaze, holding my breath, bracing for …
    “Oh!” The exclamation comes out the second my eyes focus, my hand slapping the gasp back into my mouth. Ithink it’s my hand. It
has
to be my hand, because it’s moving in a mirror that I’m in front of, so that’s me, isn’t it?
    I take a step closer. Yes, that is most certainly me. Only … improved.
    And not the combined facial features of celebrities, either. This face is mine, only so much better.
    I lean a little closer, expecting it all to end any second. Theo will come burp me awake—his favorite form of morning torture—or the clock radio will blare or the phone will ring or something will end the dream that just got really, really good.
    But none of that happens. I get even closer, squinting in disbelief; then my eyes widen in happy shock.
    Look at my hair! No, not
my
hair. Not the thin, drab, lifeless, flyaway hair that Mom always apologizes for having given me. This hair is just … shampoo commercial–worthy.
    I touch it, unable to resist running my fingers through the chocolate locks with caramel-colored highlights expertly woven in. Stick-straight, too, like