Picture Perfect Read Online Free PDF Page B

Shauna. Which wasn’t fair at all, because I knew him a lot longer than she did, and all of a sudden we weren’t allowed to hang out as much as we used to.
    Anyway, the whole Terence and Shauna situation was over now—they’d broken up after only two months together—but I still have a heart scar from that.
    Maybe a fling was the answer. A fling in which nobody got deeply involved and, therefore, nobody got hurt. And one in which I never had to tell a guy how I felt or how long I’d felt that way or hear him say sorry, but he didn’t have the same feelings for me.
    I hated the word “feelings,” come to think of it.
    “Define ‘fling,’” I said to Heather as we walked up the steps onto the deck at the backof the house. “Because ‘fling’ is ‘feeling’ without the two e ’s.”
    “Actually any good fling should have a couple e ’s in it. Like, ‘ee, this is fun, ee, he’s kidding me—’”
    “ Kidding me? That doesn’t sound fun,” I commented, laughing.
    “ Kissing me, I meant to say. Give me a break, I have jet lag,” Heather said. “You know, it’s a romantic evening. You hold hands. You gaze at each other.” She shrugged. “You act and feel goofy. You kiss. Dance, maybe.”
    “That’s it?” I asked, climbing into a chair beside the pool.
    “The rest is optional.” She sat down beside me in a chaise lounge chair. “Fun, but optional.”
    We both laughed.
    “ Have you…? I mean, would you…?” I whispered.
    “No. I’ve had the chance, but you know, the person—the timing—it wasn’t right. And I definitely don’t think it’s something you should do on, like, vacation. With some guy you don’t really know all that well.”
    “Agreed,” I said.
    “But you could make out.”
    I leaned back and looked up at the sky. “Right.”
    “And if you got carried away…”
    “No.” I shook my head. “Still not. Too risky.” The whole thing sounded too risky, if you asked me. If I didn’t do well with guys I already knew, how would I handle things any better with strangers?
    But I’d try to follow Heather’s lead, the way I did every time we were on vacation together. When we were about eight, she dared me to eat ten red-hot fireball candies in a row, so I did. That same trip, she dared me to jump off a tire swing into a lake, and I did that, too.
    I ended up with a burning-hot mouth and a red stomach from belly-flopping. That was when I decided that maybe Heather wasn’t the best role model for me.
    But maybe there were events worth following her in. And if Heather could find a guy to have an innocent—or fairly innocent—summer fling with, why couldn’t I?
    Besides, I’d already met someone. For once, I was a step ahead of her .
    “What are you guys so busy talking about?” Mrs. Olsen had walked out onto the deck, followed by my mom.
    “You could have told us the bad news, Mom,” Heather said.
    Mrs. Olsen looked a bit panicked for a second. “What bad news?”
    “That Spencer’s following us to Linden.”
    My mother laughed. “What? I, for one, think it’s wonderful news,” she said. “Don’t you think so, Emily?”
    I thought that it was strange. Weird. Potentially nice, because it never hurts to know lots of people. And potentially very embarrassing, because sometimes it’s the wrong kind of people, the ones you’ll never, ever turn to because they’d mock you for it.
    “Sure, Mom. It’s wonderful,” I murmured, glancing over at Spencer. Absolutely, positively, wonderfully bizarre .
    Heather suddenly jumped up and grabbed hold of my hands. “Come on, Em, let’s go.”
    “What?”
    “We need to talk some more—in private,” she said under her breath as she pulled me by the wrist. “We need a plan of attack, don’t you think? We’re just going down to the beach, stick our toes in the water!” she announced over her shoulder to everyone.
    “If you’re not back in fifteen minutes, I’m sending someone after you!” my mother