How I Found the Perfect Dress Read Online Free PDF Page B

boyfriends went out to celebrate, but I caught a ride home with Sarah’s parents. They were chatty and friendly as always, but as they drove off and I stood in the dark on the frozen lawn in front of my house, I felt invisible.
    I was the apple of no one’s eye.
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    When i got inside i sat down at mЧ Computer and did something I’d wanted to do for a while, but hadn’t had the nerve.
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    Dear Colin,
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    Happy Groundhog Day.
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    Kind of a sucky beginning. Groundhog Day, the totally bogus holiday. Yet maybe it was fitting, since it was a totally bogus e-mail I’d written so far:
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    Happy Groundhog Day. One of the stupider American customs. It involves weathermen dragging unwilling nocturnal rodents into the sunshine and not one person takes it seriously, but we do it every year.
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    We do it but we don’t mean it. Just like this e-mail. Because what I really want to be saying right now is, Where are you, why haven’t you written, do you ever think of me at all, do you remember what it was like between us over the summer? How we made each other laugh and told each other all the stuff that we never tell anyone? Do you remember the way we kissed on the beach before you found out how old I was? I told my friends about you and they keep asking if I’ve heard from you. . . .
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    I deleted all that crap and started over, leaving out my pathetic true feelings this time. But then I didn’t know what to say, so I looked up groundhogs on the Internet.
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    Dear Colin,
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    Happy Groundhog Day! Did you know that groundhog is another name for woodchuck? Did you know that groundhogs’ incisor teeth never stop growing? Did you know that groundhogs hibernate all winter?
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    Is that what you’re doing, Colin? Hibernating? Is that why you stopped e-mailing me, because you’re asleep? Wake up! Wake up wake up wake up . . .
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    Delete, delete, delete. Then, kind of without thinking, I wrote this.
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    Colin,
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    Hey. It’s Groundhog Day, which is meaningless, but Happy Groundhog Day anyway.
    I miss you. Not hearing from you makes me sad. Are you okay? Please write me.
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    Love,
    Morgan
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    I almost deleted the whole thing, but instead I deleted “love” so it was just signed “Morgan.” Then I closed my eyes and pressed send before I could change my mind.
    So what if he thought I was stupid for saying I missed him, when he’d already forgotten all about me? So what if my note made him roll those cornflower-blue eyes with annoyance at being hassled by the silly American girl he’d met over the summer? At this point, what did I have to lose?
    I was too anxious now to sit there staring at the screen, so I went to brush my teeth. Then I put on my pajamas and did my math homework and made some notes for the Confusionism-Duhism-Butism paper. Then it was time for bed, but I couldn’t resist and checked e-mail one more time before shutting down the computer for the night, all the while thinking, Don’t look, it’s only been an hour, he hasn’t even read it yet so stop acting like a big needy baby —
    There was a reply.
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    Mor,
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    Sorry I’ve been such a bollocks correspondent. Hard to describe what’s going on with me: I’d rather tell you when I see you, which might be sooner rather than later. Surprise, eh?
    The big news, then—they’re shipping me to your side of the Atlantic in a few weeks. You’ll never guess where I’m going, some joint called Connecticut. Know it, wink wink? DCU has some special dealio, a “robotics intensive” course at UConn. Daft name, that—you con, they con, we all con for UConn! But at least it’s not bloody Yale, that’d be too much for a country boy like me to bear.
    Arriving on 1 March, for two weeks only (must be home for St. Patrick’s Day with Grandpap, he made me swear on a pint of