Sometimes It Happens Read Online Free PDF Page A

ask him what he’s planning on doing for Ava’s birthday, which is coming up in a few months. Well, in September. But still. He’s probably going to need pointers way in advance on what to do and how to plan. Guys are completely clueless when it comes to birthdays. For my birthday last month, Sebastian bought me three bottles of lotion from Victoria’s Secret and this very trashy lingerie setfrom Frederick’s of Hollywood. I wasn’t sure what was more disturbing, that (a) he went to two different lingerie stores, spending God knows how long picking things out in there, (b) he thought I would like anything in a leopard print, or (c) it was a definite hint that he wanted to have sex.
    But now that I’m thinking about it, I really should have just worn that leopard-print teddy. Lingerie doesn’t mean you have to have sex, it just means you’re getting into a sexy mood, like maybe a let’s-do-Everything-But kind of mood. I could have worn it, or I could have taken it back and gotten something else, something in a softer pink, maybe, with some kind of lace—
    “So,” Noah says. “Are you going to take Intro to Web Design Two?”
    “I doubt it,” I say.
    “Me neither.”
    Silence again. Finally I can’t take it anymore, so I stand up and look at my reflection in the mirror over the sink. “So,” I say. “Scale of one to ten, how horrible do I look?”
    “You don’t look horrible.”
    “I don’t look great.”
    “You look exactly like you should after you just found out your asshole boyfriend is cheating on you.”
    “Thanks,” I say. I blow my nose again and start to feel a little bit better just as Ava comes tearing back into the bathroom.
    “Jonah Moncuso!” she yells, waving her phone around. “Jonah Moncuso thinks you’re hot, he’s thought you werehot since seventh grade.” Somehow I find this a little hard to believe since in seventh grade I unfortunately decided it would be a good idea to put blue streaks in my dirty blond hair, and had buck-teeth that took three years of braces to fix. It’s more likely that Jonah Moncuso is drunk and figures hooking up with me is better than not hooking up at all.
    “I don’t know,” I say. “I’m not sure if it’s a good idea.” And by “not sure” I obviously mean “definitely not.”
    “Of course it’s a good idea!” Ava says. She’s in Jenna’s medicine cabinet now, rummaging around.
    “What are you doing in there?” I ask. If she thinks I’m going to take someone else’s prescription drugs to loosen up for my rebound, she’s definitely mistaken. Taking my mom’s Ambien is one thing, but drugs from some random medicine cabinet is another.
    “Looking for some makeup for you,” she says. “You can’t go kissing someone looking like that.” She pulls out a bottle of pills. “Wow,” she says. “I had no idea that Jenna was on Adderall, did you?”
    “Ava!” Noah grabs the bottle out of her hand and puts it back in the cabinet. “You can’t just go around looking through people’s bathrooms, it’s a breach of confidentiality.”
    “Yeah,” I say. Although now that I think about it, the Adderall does explain a lot.
    “Oh, relax,” she says. “It’s not like I’m going to tell anybody.” She’s setting up a bunch of stuff on the counter, lining up bottles and tubes. “Well,” she says, looking at me and thenlooking at the mess in front of her. “It’s not ideal, since you’re a lot fairer than Jenna or whoever these belong to, but it’ll have to do. We’ll just smear the foundation all down your neck and hope for the best.”
    “I’m not using that,” I say. “Who knows what kind of diseases I could get.”
    “What would you rather have happen?” Ava asks. “Everyone seeing you slumping out of here with your head down and your makeup a mess, or everyone seeing you making out with some other guy, even if there’s a slight chance you might get a skin disease?”
    “Depends on how bad the skin disease