Tandem Read Online Free PDF

world than they were in mine. I couldn’t remember all the differences—there were so many of them, and dreams were hard to get a hold on—but this one thing I recalled with absolute precision: in Juliana’s world, the aurora borealis danced in the sky, not just at the North and South Poles, but everywhere. That was always my favorite part.
    My latest Juliana dream had happened two weeks earlier, after months of not having them at all. I’d fallen into bed at two a.m., completely exhausted after a long and painful struggle with my physics homework. I only remembered tiny pieces of it—a painting of a beautiful country house, a small origami star that seemed significant, and, as always, the green ribbons of the aurora borealis in the night sky. The overwhelming sense of foreboding I’d felt when I woke up the next morning had stuck with me through most of the day.
    The doorbell rang. I took a deep breath and hurried to answer it. My heart felt buoyant, but over-inflated, like it was straining against my rib cage.
    I yanked the door open, revealing Grant in all his formal wear glory. I could hear my blood pounding in my ears, and my stomach tumbled when he smiled at me. He was clean-shaven, his hair ever-so-slightly slicked back with some sort of product, and he carried the scent of pine needles with him through the door. The sight of him in a tux sent a sizzle up my spine. Part of me couldn’t wait to be alone with him, and regretted calling in Gina and Jeff as reinforcements, but there was another part of me that felt anxious. I had no idea what to do, or what to expect of the evening. Or, come to think of it, what would be expected of me .
    “Sorry, I couldn’t get out of the house. My mom kept trying to straighten my tie.” Grant stepped back to get a good look at me, his eyes traveling the length of my body unabashedly from foot to forehead, until he met my gaze with his own. “Wow. You look amazing.”
    A fierce blush crept into my cheeks. “Thanks.” I couldn’t remember the last time someone had said something like that to me, and I knew it had never been in a tone like that . I still couldn’t believe this was happening. Why hadn’t Grant asked one of the many girls he’d dated to go to prom with him instead of me, someone he barely knew? I decided not to let that bother me. What was the point? He didn’t seem disappointed with his choice, and neither was I.
    He shook a plastic box with a white corsage inside. “Did you want a corsage? I didn’t know, so I brought one, but it’s probably dumb. You don’t have to wear it.” He curled his arm around it, as if to shield it from my eyes, and I realized that he was nervous, too, possibly just as much as I was.
    “No, of course I’ll wear it,” I told him, and his shoulders relaxed. He slipped the corsage around my wrist, then stepped back, the corners of his mouth quirking. As I admired the flowers—an arrangement of snow-colored roses, with some leaves and baby’s breath arranged along the edges—he reached over and tucked a dark brown curl behind my ear. My hair was naturally straight, and I usually wore it pulled up in a ponytail. Gina had declared that style unacceptable for prom, and she’d spent the better part of the afternoon engaging in an all-out assault on my head with a curling iron and hair spray. It’d felt like overkill to me, but the expression on Grant’s face as he looked at me now told me that Gina’s instincts had been right on the money.
    “I like your hair down like that,” he said in a low voice.
    My skin buzzed where his hand had brushed it. A wave of intense shyness broke over me, and I was anxious to get moving. “Are we ready to go?” Gina and Jeff emerged from the parlor, and suddenly the foyer felt very crowded. All three of them looked at me expectantly. “Oh, right, introductions. Grant, this is Jeff, and that’s Gina.” Grant had gone to school with Gina as long as he had with me, but it was possible