If We Kiss Read Online Free PDF

the person he and my mother think I am, or at least I’m not anymore.
    Because the sad fact is, if that really had been Kevin on the phone earlier, calling to ask me out, I would’ve dumped George in one hot second.

seven
    “SO HERE’S THE thing and tell me the truth,” Tess said as we were walking to the lockers. “Promise?”
    “Sure.” When people say “Tell me the truth,” I usually lie. It is because, well, it is because I am not a truthful person for one thing, but it is also because they are usually asking me something about which it will be in some way hard to tell the truth. You wouldn’t say, for instance, “Tell me the truth: Do you have math third block?” You would just say, “Do you have math third block?” Because whether you do or don’t have math third block is not a difficult truth to reveal.
    “Okay.” Tess took a dramatic breath. “Do you hate Kevin Lazarus?”
    The truth? Do I hate Kevin?
    “I don’t hate him,” I answered truthfully.
    “But do you like him?”
    I could twist it around and say I was sort of being truthful in that I don’t like him; I am in love with him. I don’t like him; I am totally, paralyzingly obsessed with him. But in the privacy of my own head, I have to admit that I knew that what she was asking was not, do you have mildly positive as opposed to chart-bustingly positive feelings for Kevin. My best friend was asking if I liked him the way I actually did very much and at every waking moment like him.
    “No,” I said. “Definitely not.” What could be worse than admitting you like someone who obviously doesn’t like you?
    “I think,” she said. “I think I do, maybe.”
    Okay, that answered my what could be worse question. In response, I very articulately dropped my books.
    It would have been bad enough if I had simply dumped all my books out of my arms, scattering them across the hall, but no. In case that remarkably low level of coordination looked too suave, I tripped over them. Well, I stepped on my social studies notebook while trying to catch my bio text in midair, not realizing how hard it is to catch a book that weighs more than a toddler as it speeds toward the ground. It smashed me in the wrist, and, off-balance as I was from standing not on firm ground but on shaky history (notes), I slid. The only positive thing is that I didn’t smash into the Hair-Man himself, because between me, figure skating on my books, and the head ninth grade teacher, sitting furrily at his desk, was—a wall. A wall that I crashed into, full-force, with my head.
    Tess helped me up. “You okay?”
    “Mild concussion.” I avoided making eye contact by gathering up my stuff as hordes of kids stomped over us. Tess helped, too. She really is a good friend.
    She’s the one who managed to get most of my stuff and restore it to some semblance of order, actually. “Thanks,” I said, taking it from her.
    “No problem.”
    We walked toward our lockers.
    “Why,” I had to ask. “Why did you think, what made you think I liked Kevin?”
    “No,” she said. “I know you don’t like him. I just hoped, maybe, that you, like, didn’t think he was a complete jerk.”
    “Oh,” I said. So she wasn’t asking at all what I’d thought she was asking. It wasn’t that she thought I secretly liked him. It was only about her. Oh. I wasn’t sure if I should feel relieved or insulted, or lonely. “No,” I said. “I think he’s an incomplete jerk.”
    Tess laughed. She has a really wicked laugh.
    I smiled, then pretended to focus on my combination lock. If Kevin liked me at all he wouldn’t have made out with my best friend in my basement less than a week after making out with me. Anyway, why would I like someone who would do that?
    “Are you mad at me for something?” Tess asked. “Tell me the truth, Charlie, seriously.”
    Tell me the truth.
    “I’m not mad at you, Tess.”
    “Promise? Because you seem pretty annoyed today.”
    I dumped my books into my