Something Borrowed Read Online Free PDF

she cut them loose. Take Blaine, for
    example. He is living in Iowa with a wife, three kids, and a couple
    of chocolate Labs, and he still e-mails Darcy on her birthday every
    year. Now that is some kind of power.
    To this day Darcy talks wistfully of how great high school was. I
    cringe whenever she says it. Sure, I have some fond memories of
    those days, and enjoyed moderate popularity a nice fringe benefit
    of being Darcy's best friend. I loved going to football games with
    Annalise, painting our faces orange and blue, wrapping up in
    blankets in the bleachers, and waving to Darcy as she cheered
    down on the field. I loved our Saturday-night trips to Colonial Ice
    Cream, where we always ordered the same thing one turtle
    sundae, one Snickers pie, one double-chocolate brownie and then
    split them among us. And I loved my first boyfriend, Brandon
    Beamer, who asked me out during our senior year.
    Brandon was a
    rule-follower too, a Catholic version of me. He didn't drink or do
    drugs, and he felt guilty even discussing sex. Darcy, who lost her
    virginity our sophomore year to an exchange student from Spain
    named Carlos, was always instructing me to corrupt Brandon.
    "Grab his penis like this, and I guarantee, it's a done deal." But I
    was perfectly happy with our long make-out sessions in Brandon's
    family station wagon, and I never had to worry about safe sex or
    drunk driving. So if my memories weren't glamorous, at least I
    had a few good times.
    But I also had plenty of bad times: the awful hair days, the
    pimples, the class pictures from hell, never having the right
    clothes, being dateless for dances, baby fat that I could never
    shed, getting cut from teams, losing the election for class
    treasurer. And the overwhelming feeling of sadness and angst that
    would come and go willy-nilly (or, more accurately, once a
    month), seemingly out of my control. Typical teenager stuff,
    really. Cliches, because it happens to everyone.
    Everyone but
    Darcy, that is, who floated through those tumultuous four years
    unscathed by rejection, untouched by the adolescent ugly stick. Of
    course she loved high school high school loved her.
    Many girls with this view of their teenage years seem to really take
    it on the chin later in life. They show up at their ten-year reunion
    twenty pounds heavier, divorced, and reminiscing about their
    long-gone glory days. But the tide of glory days hasn't ebbed for
    Darcy. No crashing and no burning. In fact, life just keeps getting
    sweeter for her. As my mother once said,
    uncharacteristically,
    Darcy has the world by the balls. It was and still is the perfect
    description. Darcy always gets what she wants. And that includes
    Dex, the dream fiance.
    I leave Darcy a message on her cell, which will be turned off
    during the movie. I say that I am too tired to make it to dinner.
    Just getting out of going makes me less queasy. In fact, I am
    suddenly very hungry. I find my menus and call to order a
    hamburger with cheddar and fries. Guess I won't be losing five
    pounds before Memorial Day. As I wait for my delivery, I picture
    Darcy and me playing with the phone book all those years ago,
    wondering about the future and what age thirty would bring.
    And here I am, without the dashing husband, the responsible
    babysitter, the two kids. Instead my benchmark birthday is
    forever tainted by scandal Oh, well. No point beating myself up
    over it. I hit redial on my phone and add a large chocolate milk
    shake to my order. I see my girl in the corner of the jury box wink
    at me. She thinks the milk shake is an excellent idea.
    After all,
    doesn't everyone deserve a few weak moments on her birthday?

Chapter 3
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    When I wake up the next morning, the cavalier girl sucking down
    a milk shake is gone, caved to guilt and thirty years of rulefollowing.
    I can no longer rationalize what I did. I committed an unspeakable act against a friend, violated a central tenet of
    sisterhood. There is no