She's So Dead to Us Read Online Free PDF

shoulders. “You’re lookin’ smokin’ as ever! Where you been, girl?”
    Trevor came over and hugged me too, turning me into the filling inside an Idiot Twin sandwich. The force of their hugs brought tears to my eyes. I’d missed them. All of them. Even the Idiot Twins. But clearly, only these two doofs had missed me.
    “I have to go,” I mumbled, extricating myself from their clammy grasp and ducking away so that no one could see my eyes.
    “Wait, what?” Trevor said.
    “You just got here! We’re gonna have chips and dips!” Todd added.
    I would have laughed if I hadn’t been so miserable. On my way out the door I almost barreled over some punk-looking chick with blond hair who had just walked in—right in time to see my ignominious exit. I sputtered an apology, then almost tripped again when I realized she was Annie Johnston, Faith’s best friend. Another one with a completely new look. In any other scenario I would have stopped to say hi, but she probably hated me as much as Faith did. I slipped by her and ran for the edge of the jam-packed driveway, where I’d stashed my bike under the thick border of evergreen trees.
    My legs pumped the pedals with all their might as I raced away from Connor’s house, my breath coming short and shallow, until I reached Harvest Lane. There I placed my feet on the ground and glanced back over my shoulder in the direction of Vista View. Somewhere back there behind the trees was my old house. My old life. The life that I, apparently, could never go back to.
    I was never going to lie out under the sun with Chloe again or ride bikes with Shannen or put on fake concerts with Faith or climb trees with Hammond and the twins. I was never going to kiss Bedroom Boy under the bleachers after a soccer game. Never going to see him waiting for me after class or searching for me in the caf or standing in a tux under the domed ceiling of the country club ballroom.
    Not that I had been daydreaming about those things for the last two days. Not at all. Clearly it was time for me to officially grow up. I turned my back on Vista View and rode on.
    My mother was going to die when she heard what had happened tonight. All she wanted was to move home and reclaim her old friends, her old life. That was all she wanted for the both of us. Well, it appeared that, for one of us at least, that was not going to happen.
    God, I hated my father. How could he do this to us? To them? How could he lose all their money, move us out of a town we loved, and then just drop us? Just disappear without a word, without an explanation? Where the hell was he? Was he ever going to come back? Was he ever going to try to rectify what he’d done?
    I tipped my front wheel down the hill at the top of Harvest and took my feet off the pedals, just letting myself fly. Letting the wind clear my head and tug a few tears from the corners of my eyes. At the bottom I almost forgot to stop. Almost flew directly into the two-way traffic on Orchard Avenue. But as soon as I saw the cars whizzing by, my brain snapped back into focus. I hit the brakes hard and yanked my wheel to the left, stopping two inches away from the brick wall of the bagel shop at the corner. My chest heaved. My heart raced. My pores oozed hot sweat into my clothes. And only one word came into my mind.
    No.
    Just like that, I knew. I knew my mother would never find out about tonight. She didn’t need to know I’d pathetically reached out to them and been brutally rejected. Clearly, my new life in Orchard Hill was going to be just that—a new life. I didn’t need the Cresties. I felt, suddenly, foolish for ever thinking I did. Somehow I’d survived the last year and a half without them. I could survive the next two. And so what if Bedroom Boy hadn’t defended my honor back there? I could handle myself. Sort of. At least, I would. From now on.
    I turned my bike down Orchard Avenue and headed for my new home. Faith was right. I was a Norm now. It was time to