Something Borrowed Read Online Free PDF Page A

gentlemen of the jury, in a sense, Darcy Rhone had
    this coming to her. What goes around comes around.
    Perhaps this
    is her comeuppance.
    I picture the faces of the jury. They are not swayed.
    The male
    jurors look bewildered as if they miss the point altogether.
    Doesn't the prettiest girl always get the boy? That is precisely the
    way the world should work. An older woman in a sensible dress
    purses her lips. She is disgusted by the mere comparison a fiance
    to a fifth-grade crush! Good heavens! A perfectly groomed, almost
    beautiful woman, wearing a canary-yellow Chanel suit, has
    already identified and allied herself with Darcy. There is nothing I
    can say to change her mind or mitigate my offense.
    The only juror who seems moved by the Ethan tale is a slightly
    overweight girl with a severe bob the color of day-old coffee. She
    slouches in the corner of the jury box, occasionally shoving her
    glasses up on her beak of a nose. I have tapped into this girl's
    empathy, her sense of justice. She is secretly satisfied by what I
    did. Maybe because she, too, has a friend like Darcy, a friend who
    always gets everything she wants.
    I think back to high school, when Darcy continued to get any boy
    she wanted. I can see her kissing Blaine Conner by our locker and
    recall the envy that would well up inside me when I, boyfriendless,
    was forced to witness their shameless PDA. Blaine transferred to
    our school from Columbus, Ohio, in the fall of our junior year, and
    became an instant hit everywhere but in the classroom.
    Although
    he wasn't bright, he was the star receiver on our football team, the
    starting point guard for our basketball team, and, of course, our
    starting pitcher in the spring. And with his Ken-doll good looks,
    the girls loved him. Doug Jackson, part two. But alas, he had a
    girlfriend named Cassandra back in Columbus to whom he
    claimed to be "110 percent committed" (a jock expression that has
    always bugged me for its obvious mathematical impossibility). Or
    so he was before Darcy got in the mix, after we watched Blaine
    pitch a no-hitter against Central and she decided that she had to
    have him. The next day she asked him to go see Les Miserables.
    You'd think a three-sport jock like Blaine wouldn't be into
    musicals, but he enthusiastically agreed to escort her.
    After the
    show, in Darcy's living room, Blaine planted a large hickey on her
    neck. And the following morning, one Cassandra of Columbus,
    Ohio, was dumped on her ear.
    I remember talking to Annalise about Darcy's charmed life. We
    often discussed Darcy, which made me wonder how much they
    gossiped about me. Annalise contended that it wasn't only Darcy's
    good looks or perfect body; it was also her confidence, her charm.
    I don't know about the charm, but looking back I agree with
    Annalise about the confidence. It was as if Darcy had the
    perspective of a thirty-year-old while in high school.
    The
    understanding that none of it really mattered, that you only go
    around once, that you might as well go for it. She was never
    intimidated, never insecure. She embodied what everyone says
    when they look back on high school: "If I only knew back then."
    But one thing I have to say about Darcy and dating is this: she
    never blew us off for a guy. She always put her friends first which
    is an amazing thing for a high school girl to do.
    Sometimes she
    blew her boyfriend off altogether, but more often she just included
    us. Four of us in a row at the theater. The flavor of the month,
    then Darcy, then Annalise and me. And Darcy always directed her
    whispered comments our way. She was brash and independent,
    unlike most high school girls who allow their feelings for a boy to
    swallow them up. At the time, I thought she just didn't love them
    enough. But maybe Darcy just wanted to keep control, and by
    being the one who loved the least, that is what she had.
    Whether
    she did care less or just pretended to, she kept every one of them
    on the hook even after