Read Online Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone - Free Book Online

steps backward until she reaches my bed. She drops back on my comforter and rests her weight on her hands, legs crossed in front of
her. I read her T-shirt: FREE SHRUGS .
    “So what happened today?”
    She looks like she genuinely wants to hear the story. And I definitely want to talk about it. If Mom were here, we’d be downstairs on the couch eating ice cream straight out of the carton
while I spilled every detail. I flop down on the opposite side of the bed, mimicking Caroline’s pose.
    “Today was Alexis’s birthday.”
    “Alexis? The little Barbie one? Wears high heels, like, every day?” I nod. It’s funny to hear how other people see her.
    Then I fill her in on the details of the spa day I wasn’t originally invited to. I tell her about the drive and the sound of the fountain and the smell of flowers on the breeze, but when I
get to the part about the personalized bags, my chest feels tight. I pull at a loose thread on the pant leg of my jeans.
    “It’s dumb, right? I shouldn’t be upset. It was last minute…” I let my words hang in the air as I check Caroline’s reaction. She doesn’t say anything,
but her face scrunches up and I can tell she doesn’t think I’m dumb at all.
    “Her mom obviously felt bad,” I continue. “She said I could pick anything I wanted from the gift shop.”
    “I hope you picked something ridiculously expensive.”
    I shake my head. “After our appointments were finished, we were running late and she rushed us off to lunch.”
    Caroline bites her lip.
    “But, hey, on the bright side, look at my skin.” I lean in a little closer. “Don’t I look ten years younger?”
    She leans in too. “You’re asking me if you look like you’re six?” I laugh, and Caroline joins in. “I hope lunch was better.”
    “Worse.”
    She stops laughing. “How is that possible?”
    “When her mom called the restaurant to change the reservation from four people to five, they told her we had to be at separate tables. I guess she assumed they’d push them together
or something.”
    “No.”
    “Yep. It was a French restaurant with these tiny café tables—”
    “Wait, so you sat with your friend’s mom while everyone else sat together at another table?” I’m glad I didn’t have to say it out loud. I have a feeling it still
wouldn’t be funny.
    I cross my arms. I faked a headache to come home early, but now I feel a real one coming on with the retelling. “I’m overreacting, right?”
    As I wait for her response, I study her eyes. They’re narrow and hooded, but I’m no longer trying to figure out how to apply eye shadow to open them up. They’re pretty the way
they are. Her hair doesn’t seem so stringy either, and I’m not dying to cover up her blemishes. I’m just happy she’s here.
    “You’re not overreacting,” she says.
    “Are you sure? Because you can tell me if I am. I have a tendency to overthink things, especially when it comes to my friends, and I don’t know…I take things too personally. I
mean, it isn’t always
them
. Sometimes it’s me. I just don’t always know when it’s them and when it’s me, you know?”
    I’m not sure if that made sense, but Caroline’s looking at me like she understood it perfectly. It’s like I can read her mind right now. She doesn’t like that my friends
hurt my feelings, intentionally or not. Whether it’s them or me, she doesn’t understand why I’d choose to hang around with people I’m constantly questioning. And she’s
sad for me, because my closest friends don’t feel all that close anymore, not like they did when we were those kids on that poster hanging on my wall.
    I picture the people I saw in Poet’s Corner that day. “You don’t ever wonder what your friends think about you, do you?”
    Caroline doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. I can tell I’m right by the look on her face.
    “You’re lucky,” I say.
    I stare down at my feet, thinking about how I spent last night