Over You Read Online Free PDF Page B

Bridget keeps talking. “I want to go back to sleep so I can wake up and have it be that this didn’t really happen. That he didn’t really dump me.”
    “But he did. Drink,” Max encourages her. Bridget sips.
    “Rule number one: caffeine is your new best friend. Liquid optimism.”
    “I just … it hurts. So. Much.”
    “Mornings and evenings are the worst,” Max says as she pulls her up to sitting to give her the Day One speech. “But every day there’s going to be a little window of time where you feel not just ‘barely alive,’ not just ‘okay,’ but positively euphoric. Winning American Idol euphoric. And that window is going to get longer and longer each and every day. Because your body knows that surviving this … elephant is going to bring you a level of strength you have not yet known. I promise. And my system will speed what organically can take months, or years, to a few weeks. Today we’re aiming for about a thirty-second window, okay?”
    Bridget drops her head to Max’s shoulder.
    “Fifteen?”
    Bridget nods.
    “Okay, now let’s start with a shower. You’ll feel better.”
    “But after the shower is dressed, after dressed is breakfast, after breakfast is leaving. When Taylor won’t be waiting downstairs for his morning kiss and Pop-Tart before we split up for school. Because we split up for real .” Bridget buries her face in her raised knees, the idea of taking a single step unbearable. “I won’t feel better.”
    Max pats her sweaty back. “But I will.” She stands and claps her hands. “Okay! You have homeroom at eight twenty, and we have a ton of ground to cover. Being late today of all days is not cool—in fact, for the next month I don’t care if you get wombat flu, you will be at school every day looking awesome because that will get back to him and that will be the first chink in his ego. Okay, time to wash off the last twelve hours! Here we go! The rest of your spectacular life awaits!”
    Bridget stares at Max, salty tear-crusts in the corners of her eyes and mouth. “Sorry. So you’re Shannon’s friend? I’m just not really following how you—”
    “We’ll get to that. Take the coffee in with you. Right in under the water. Here.” She pulls Bridget to her feet, hands her the lid, and holds the edge of the floral comforter. It trails off Bridget’s shoulders like a queen’s cape as she shuffles to the bathroom.
    While Bridget showers, Max does an informed sweep of the room, removing the sweatshirt, stuffed duck, and dangly earrings Zach’s electronic espionage revealed were gifts from Taylor. She then returns the hacked laptop to Bridget’s desk. Lastly Max whips out her sterling tape measure, another flea market score, and sizes up the windows.
    Minutes later, Bridget, in a fresh long-sleeved tee and cords, her wet hair in a bun, sits cross-legged on the carpet across from her TV, devouring a warm breakfast wrap Max brought from the deli. Max connects the TV to her own laptop, and her PowerPoint appears with the acronym CPSRW .
    “This is your schedule,” Max says forcefully. “Up! Out of bed! And directly downstairs to the kitchen for a sugar-free caffeinated beverage—”
    “Sugar free?” Bridget asks through a mouthful of egg.
    “No Coke. No Red Bull. No Frappuccinos. We can’t risk you getting artificially hyped and doing something ill advised.” She clicks to the next slide, a photo of one Lorena Bobbitt. “Cut off her ex’s penis.” Then she advances the screen to Clara Harris. “Ran over her cheating husband three times. And we’re not going out like that, not because it wouldn’t feel spectacular, but because we want you ending up fabulous.” She advances the screen to a sunny picture of a gorgeously grinning Jennifer Aniston. “Not fettered and reduced to a Lifetime TV bio-pic. This is about the long haul, Bridget, not immediate gratification. Immediate gratification and lawlessness make you one thing: a psycho. That’s not my