The Perfectionists Read Online Free PDF Page B

“I should probably go.”
    Caitlin nodded, and before she could overthink it, she threw her arms around Jeremy and hugged him. After a moment, he hugged her back. And as she stood there, warm in his embrace, she realized that it was the first time since her brother died that she didn’t feel so terribly alone.

CHAPTER THREE
    EARLY THURSDAY EVENING, MACKENZIE WRIGHT , dressed in a patchwork skirt with her long, unruly blond hair clipped back from her face, sat in the passenger seat of her best friend Claire Coldwell’s car, humming along to Dvořák’s New World Symphony. Mrs. Rabinowitz, their Honors Orchestra conductor, insisted they live, breathe, and sleep the piece until their upcoming concert. Mackenzie absentmindedly moved her fingers along with the melody, as if her cello were right there in front of her rather than tucked in the hatchback of Claire’s blue Ford Escape.
    â€œHello? Earth to Mackenzie.” Claire waved a hand in front of Mackenzie’s glasses.
    Mackenzie snapped to focus, realizing that Claire had been talking to her. “Oh, sorry. I’m kind of out of it today.”
    Claire glanced at Mac sympathetically, her perfectly pink lips pressed together. “Me too,” she confided. “That assembly about Nolan was so awful. I can’t get over that he’s just . . . gone. ”
    Mackenzie glanced out the window, staring at the too-green front lawns of the passing houses. Nolan might be gone, but there were reminders of him everywhere— photos of him on the walls, news programs about his “accidental overdose,” the morning announcements saying that his funeral was on Sunday, just three days from now. And that assembly, ugh. The principal had shown the pictures of Nolan’s marked-up face that Mac herself had posted anonymously from an internet café. Leave it to Beacon High, pressure cooker of all pressure cookers, to even make a memorial assembly intense.
    But most intense were Mackenzie’s own memories of that night. “Can we change the subject?” she mumbled.
    â€œSure. Have you heard back about your audition schedule yet?” Claire said.
    The word audition sent another spike of fear through Mackenzie’s heart like a shard of ice. Claire was talking about the Juilliard audition. “Um, yeah. It’s the Friday after next. Five PM .”
    â€œYeah?” Claire straightened up, tossing her short, curly bob. It was a style that would look horrible on Mac but looked pixie-like and adorable on Claire. The hint of a smirk danced across Claire’s face. “Me too. Except I’m at four. Right before you, I guess.”
    Beads of sweat broke out along the back of Mackenzie’s neck. Mac and Claire had met as five-year-olds at a music camp for precocious preschoolers and had been inseparable ever since. Claire was übercompetitive with Mackenzie, always trying to beat her out for first chair or dictating what they did every Friday night, but she was also the only person Mackenzie had anything in common with—even with all the pressure to be perfect at Beacon Heights High, not many people could understand the sacrifices they had to make for music. They shared everything: which boy they had secret crushes on, which music teachers they hated—how, sometimes, they didn’t feel like playing at all.
    Now they were both vying to get a spot at Juilliard, though the conservatory had never taken two cellists from the same school before. More than likely, there wouldn’t be room for both. And given everything that had happened with them in the past year, Mackenzie wasn’t sure she wanted there to be.
    â€œHere we are.” Claire pulled over outside Cupcake Kingdom, a popular spot in Beacon Heights, right on the town square. The afternoon rain had slackened, but the pavement was still wet and slick, and the trees and streetlights dripped water to the sidewalk below in arrhythmic