Purity Read Online Free PDF

questionnaire.”
    â€œHe can’t come back another night?”
    â€œReally trying to avoid that if I can.”
    â€œSo go tell him you only need a few minutes, ten minutes, with a girlfriend. Then you don’t have to be the jealous one for a change.”
    Here Annagret winked at her, which seemed a real feat to Pip, who was no good at winking, winks being the opposite of sarcasm.
    â€œI think you’d better take me while you’ve got me,” she said.
    Annagret assured her that there were no right or wrong answers to the questionnaire, which Pip felt couldn’t possibly be true, since why bother giving it if there were no wrong answers? But Annagret’s beauty was reassuring. Facing her across the table, Pip had the sense that she was being interviewed for the job of being Annagret.
    â€œ Which of the following is the best superpower to have? ” Annagret read. “ Flying, invisibility, reading people’s minds, or making time stop for everyone except you. ”
    â€œReading people’s minds,” Pip said.
    â€œThat’s a good answer, even though there are no right answers.”
    Annagret’s smile was warm enough to bathe in. Pip was still mourning the loss of college, where she’d been effective at taking tests.
    â€œ Please explain your choice ,” Annagret read.
    â€œBecause I don’t trust people,” Pip said. “Even my mom, who I do trust, has things she doesn’t tell me, really important things, and it would be nice to have a way to find them out without her having to tell me. I’d know the stuff I need to know, but she’d still be OK. And then, with everyone else, literally everyone, I can never be sure of what they’re thinking about me, and I don’t seem to be very good at guessing what it is. So, it’d be nice to be able to just dip inside their heads, just for like two seconds, and make sure everything’s OK—just be sure that they’re not thinking some horrible thought about me that I have no clue about—and then I could trust them. I wouldn’t abuse it or anything. It’s just so hard not to ever trust people. It makes me have to work so hard to figure out what they want from me. It gets to be so tiring .”
    â€œOh, Pip, we hardly have to do the rest. What you’re saying is fantastic.”
    â€œTruly?” Pip smiled sadly. “You see, even here, though, I’m wondering why you’re saying that. Maybe you’re just trying to get me to keep doing the questionnaire. For that matter, I’m also wondering why you care so much about my doing it.”
    â€œYou can trust me. It’s only because I’m impressed with you.”
    â€œYou see, but that doesn’t even make any sense, because I’m actually not very impressive. I don’t know all that much about nuclear weapons, I just happened to know about Israel. I don’t trust you at all. I don’t trust you. I don’t trust people.” Pip’s face was growing hot. “I should really go upstairs now. I’m feeling bad about leaving my friend there.”
    This ought to have been Annagret’s cue to let her go, or at least to apologize for keeping her, but Annagret (maybe this was a German thing?) seemed not very good at taking cues. “We have to follow the form,” she said. “It’s only a form, but we have to follow it.” She patted Pip’s hand and then stroked it. “We’ll go fast.”
    Pip wondered why Annagret kept touching her.
    â€œ Your friends are disappearing. They don’t respond to texts or Facebook or phone. You talk to their employers, who say they haven’t been to work. You talk to their parents, who say they’re very worried. You go to the police, who tell you they’ve investigated and say your friends are OK but living in different cities now. After a while, every single friend of yours is gone. What do