The Girl with the Wrong Name Read Online Free PDF Page A

a Chinese food delivery guy upstairs without calling first.
    Of course, she’d assumed I was the culprit.
    “Who is it?” she mouthed, like I was Anne Frank and the Nazis had just discovered our secret annex.
    “I don’t know,”I mouthed back.
    “Did you invite someone over?”
    “I did not. Mom, can you chill,please?”
    The thought of finding Andy Reese behind that door didn’t even occur to me till I was reaching for the doorknob. It sailed across my mind like a gust of wind, somewhere between the shave-and-a-haircut knock and the drawn-out, steady thump-thumping that seemed to imitate a heartbeat.
    Here’s a quick tip: when your junior year is winding down and your mother asks a question like, “Have you started your college applications yet?,” don’t give her a vaguely existential answer like, “I can’t even picture my life past the age of eighteen.”
    This will set off an ultrasonic suicide alert that only parents and school counselors can hear. The next thing you know, you’ll be sitting across from Dr. Harold Silver in an office full of Gustav Klimt posters and African folk art, trying to clarify your answer as he writes you a prescription for Lexapro. You’ll try to explain that you’re not the least bit suicidal; you’ve just always pictured a big empty frame after your eighteenth birthday, but he’ll already be listing off potential side effects.
    Later you’ll come to realize that those potential side effects are “everything.”
    In my case, the worst was world-class insomnia.
    So then you’ll tell Dr. Silver that you’re struggling with insomnia, and he’ll prescribe Ambien. While on Ambien, you will bake and eat an entire pan of Pillsbury crescent rolls in your sleep and have a terrible nightmare about the Pillsbury Doughboy, staring at you with this really judgy look in his eyes. After enough of those bad dreams, you’ll stop the Ambien, but you won’t tell your mother or Dr. Silver because you don’t want to try the next thing he has to offer.
    At least, I didn’t.
    So now it’s just me and my dear frenemy Lexapro. Sometime I just call him “Lex.” He halfheartedly wards off my depression and anxiety all day, but then keeps me awake all night so I can dream up more depressing and anxious scenarios for him to ward off come dawn. It’s the neurotic circle of life! Or not. He’s like a pet or a little brother you don’t even want.
    Dr. Silver told me that as long as I never missed a pill and continued to stick with the program, the side effects would wear off after the first few weeks. But that never happened, which is fine with me. Honestly? I need Lex’s side effects more than ever now. Lex saves me every night.
    After all, I can’t possibly have another Night in Question if I’m only asleep two to three hours at a time.
    I did not open our front door to find Andy Reese. I opened it to find Louise Cho, my putative best friend, holding a bunch of white daisies.
    “What’s wrong?” Lou asked, disappointed. “They’re daisies. Your wedding flower? Your all-time favorite?” She shook them a little to make them more enticing. “They match the Dream Ring. No?”
    “Yeah, thanks,” I said. I tried to smile; I really did. I accepted the flowers from her and took a long whiff of their earthy sweetness.
    “Um. So, hi?” Lou said.
    “What up,” I mumbled. Awkward silence.
    “I really like your hair,” she said cautiously. She reached out to touch it, but I couldn’t help jerking my head back. I turned to the floor and smoothed my hair against my cheek. I knew what she was trying to say; I just wish she hadn’t said it. Max had known better.
    “Thanks,” I said. Without noticing, I’d begun to tap my foot.
    “Okay, what?” Lou threw up her hands. One of them landed on her bony hip.
    “Whut-whut?” I replied reflexively, imitating some long-dead MC.
    “Why so gangsta?” She laughed, uncomfortable. “What is your thing today? You didn’t answer any of my