I'm Not Her Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. I don’t want anyone to know. No one.” She pauses, getting her control back. “I mean it.”
    I bite my lip hard and study her profile. “Uh, what did you talk about then?” She was gone for over an hour. Oh my God.
    “We didn’t talk much actually.” She snorts softly as we pull up to a red light, but her laughter doesn’t spiral out of control. “We had sex.” Her voice is emotionless, detached. All traces of laughter are gone and she sticks her chin out. “I didn’t want to die a virgin.”
    But then a sob slips out and her eyes glisten with tears. “I thought it would be nicer,” she says. “But it felt wrong. It wasn’t…what I expected.”
    My heart hurts with wanting her to have the fairy-tale romance.
    “It felt like it was happening to someone else. I mean I didn’t even feel like I was there, you know?”
    But I don’t know. The thought of her so vulnerable with her news and so naked in every way makes me want to throw up. I want to protect her from Devon as if he’s the bad guy. As if he should have done better by her.
    In front of the car, a group of college boys cross the street. They wear university jackets and are whooping, pushing each other around. They spot Kristina and me in the car and start whistling and making rude gestures at us.
    The light changes and Kristina rolls down her window, gives them the finger, and speeds up, almost running into the slowest one, and he jumps on the sidewalk and yells at her.
    I wipe away tears until we reach our house. As she pulls the car to the curb and shuts it off, I sniffle and try to get a hold of myself.
    “You can’t tell a soul,” she tells me before she opens the door to climb out. “Not about me and Devon, and especially not about the cancer.” She glares at me. “Promise?”
    “I won’t say a thing about Devon, but why not the…?” I don’t want to say the word. “That you’re sick. Your friends will want to know. They’ll want to help…” My throat tightens and I can no longer talk.
    She shakes her head and her blond hair billows around her face. She’s so pretty, even with runny eyes and a red nose. It strikes me that she doesn’t look different. Not from the sex or the cancer. Not yet.
    She opens the car door and looks at me as she holds the door, ready to climb out. “You promise?”
    I sniffle. I don’t want to agree. But I nod.
    She gazes right into my eyes and it feels like she sees more than I want her to. She gets out of the car. I call her name, wanting to say something more, but she doesn’t hear me, or maybe she chooses not to. She slams her door and my heart breaks a little more.
    When I walk in the house, Kristina is already upstairs. I hear Dad in his office, clanking on his keyboard, pretending he’s not waiting up for us, knowing he won’t come out.
    Mom has left one of her scented candles burning in the kitchen. I blow it out. The smoke swirls up and disappears.

chapter four
    Our house is party central for the academic university crowd. Mom loves throwing parties. She flings invitations around like confetti at a wedding. I thought Dad would convince her to cancel her planned Sunday brunch for his colleagues under the circumstances. Oldest daughter having cancer and all. But no. Apparently, in their little game of denial, they aren’t planning to tell anyone about Kristina’s cancer. Party on.
    “It’s the best way to handle it,” I hear Mom tell Dad as I pass their bedroom on the way to the bathroom. “We don’t want to change everything and upset Kristina.”
    Yeah, I think, except I guess Mom totally missed the memo that everything has changed. Whether she throws a party or not.
    Dad lets her make these kinds of choices, so he can focus on his work or do eighteen holes uninterrupted. I peek around the corner. Mom has an outfit laid out for him on the bed, one she picked herself from the gigantic walk-in closet. It’s embarrassing the way she treats him like she’s a lovesick 1970s