Scarlet Wakefield 01 - Kiss Me Kill Me Read Online Free PDF

the process, Plum gives Nadia a single swift glance, which seems to encompass me, and sits back on the fountain step, looking smug.
    “Yeah, come to the party, Scarlett,” Nadia says. “Everyone will be there. You’re not doing anything else Saturday night, are you?”
    I shake my head, though it’s a lie. I was supposed to see a film with Luce and Alison. This is a whole series of betrayals, I realize, not just the one. I feel terrible. But I also feel incredibly excited that I’ve been invited to Nadia’s party. I’m so confused I don’t know what to think.
    “Great,” Simon says enthusiastically. “That means you’re coming, right?”
    I nod.
    And then I look up at Dan, hoping he’ll be as enthusiastic as Simon. He meets my eyes and smiles at me, and my heart turns over.
    Hah. Little do I know that by the end of that longed-for party, I’ll be looking back and yearning for the chance to take back that nod. To rewind this entire encounter, like running a DVD backward on fast speed, as I get up, walk backward down the path, seemingly followed by Nadia, cross the road backward (not too safe, that, but I don’t get knocked over), reach my friends, and press Stop and then Play again—and change the outcome. To say to Nadia, “No, thanks, I won’t come and hang out with you if Alison and Luce can’t come, too.”
    But by the time the party ends, it’ll be too late.
    Dan McAndrew will be dead.
    And it’ll be me who killed him.

three
    JEANS GO WITH EVERYTHING
    You can only worry about what’s going on at the time. That’s one of life’s weird ironies. Because so many times afterward, you look back and think, God, that’s what I was fussing about? Talk about a total lack of proportion! I’d give anything to go back in time and be dealing with those tiny little issues, instead of the great big problems I’m wrestling with now.
    But hey, welcome to the wonderful world of hindsight.
    Because I don’t know right now that I’m being set up. I don’t know that Dan McAndrew is going to die at that party. All I do know is that I’m obsessed with two worries going round and round in my head, and (because I can’t see into the future) they seem like the two most important things in the world, like an eclipse blocking out the sun, so I can’t focus on schoolwork, gymnastics, anything but them: (a) Will Luce and Alison ever forgive me? And (b) What the hell am I going to wear to Nadia’s party?
    I’m horribly ashamed to admit this, but the second question is the one that’s bothering me more. And I know what an awful person that makes me. I should feel terrible about turning my back on my friends like that, and I do. When I think about Alison and Luce, and the fact that they’re sending me to Coventry at the moment—not speaking to me, not looking at me, basically pretending I don’t exist—I get an awful sinking feeling in my stomach.
    And when I think about the party, I feel like sick is rising in the back of my throat. Why on earth did I agree to go? I barely know anyone to say more than two words to. I don’t travel in their world in any way. Their specialist subjects are the classics.
    And I don’t mean Latin and ancient Greek. I mean the real St. Tabby’s classics: where to get the best manicure, which is the best month to go to Saint-Tropez, which boys will raise your social status, and how to get on the special pre-sale-viewing list for whichever shoe designer is hot this year.
    And no, I’m not familiar with these topics from personal experience. But if you have any classes with Plum or Nadia or Venetia, or if you’re simply stuck behind them as they take their time going upstairs in those wobbly stilettos, you can’t help learning more about them than you ever wanted to know. It’s all they bang on about. You’d think St. Tabby’s was a Swiss finishing school with classes in flower-arranging and how to get out of Porsches, the way they carry on.
    And yes, I’m jealous of how