Yesterday Read Online Free PDF Page B

Seth’s kiss to Shane’s. Tonight feels like the very fi rst time I was ever kissed.
    How can that be? Shane and I kissed tons of times during our two months together. At the local swimming pool, crammed in the backseat of his car, curled up on my parents’
    couch. Not to mention the few stray kisses I had with other boys at parties before I met Shane and after we split up.
    As Seth and I ease apart, Nicolette interrupts my thoughts by approaching with Corey in tow to introduce him. Before I know it she’s leading me around to meet people with names like Sheri, Lisa, Denise, Tonya, Ron, Mike, Terry, Jennifer and Justin and shortly after that I’m sipping rum and Coke from a paper cup and standing behind Nicolette in the line for the upstairs bathroom, with no clue what’s become of Seth.
    “I think he’s playing hockey,” Nicolette tells me, which makes me grin dazedly because I hadn’t realized that I’d wondered about him out loud.
    “Wow,” she says, giggling, “your alcohol tolerance is worse than mine.”
    I don’t remember drinking before.
    I don’t remember skating.
    I don’t remember my best friend’s favorite band.
    I don’t remember what it felt like to kiss my ex-boyfriend on the mouth.
    And I’m still smiling at Nicolette because it’s so stupidly ridiculous, trying to lose myself in sitcoms, paper cups and a jock guy with braces. As though any of those things can really help me. If it was that easy to make me feel normal again I wouldn’t need to be here.
    Once I get out of the bathroom Nicolette’s gone. I spend a couple of minutes searching for her and then another couple of minutes staring out the sliding glass door at Seth charg-ing around the ice in pursuit of the puck. A tower of paper cups is stacked on the kitchen counter next to the alcohol and I pour myself another rum and Coke (is it my third or fourth?) and wander into the living room. Paul Young’s singing “Everything Must Change.” I sway to the music, fi ghting the sadness welling up inside me.
    Why does everything have to change? And when was the last time I felt connected to the things around me?
    “Hey, gorgeous,” a voice sings into my right ear. I swivel towards the voice, expecting to stare into Seth’s hazel eyes.
    But there’s some other guy standing next to me, eyeing me up from head to toe. He’s taller than Seth and wearing a T-shirt that shows off sizeable biceps. “I’m Matt,” he says.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Freya,” I drawl, the alcohol in partial control of my voice.
    “Fray-ya,” he pronounces, nodding after the fact. “Do you want to dance with me, Fray-ya? It looks like you like this song.” Matt steps closer to me, sliding his hand around my waist to guide me into the middle of the room, where the other dancers are.
    I take a single step forward, my defense mechanisms working slower than usual because of the alcohol too, before stopping to pry his hand from my waist. “I’m here with someone,” I tell him.
    “Figures.” Matt frowns, his arms dangling awkwardly at his sides. “You can’t blame a guy for trying.”
    I guess not. Truthfully, if I didn’t feel so adrift maybe I’d be sort of fl attered. While it’s weird to have people I don’t know staring at me in class it pumps up my ego to have guys chase after me for a change. I don’t know how to account for it, but maybe I don’t one hundred percent hate it all the time.
    I spot Nicolette edging her way through the crowd towards me as Matt’s slinking away. She bumps my hip and exclaims, “There you are! Come dance with us.” By “us” she means herself and three of the girls she introduced me to earlier.
    We whirl in time to the music, our arms in the air and the crowd feeling like they’re closing in on us, making me hot and a little dizzy until the other strange feelings catch up with me and begin to take over. I consider weaving through the crowd and out to the rink to make Seth kiss me again, just to stop