Read Online Gorgeous by Rachel Vail - Free Book Online

Roxie,” I said, feeling like an idiot for not realizing she’d obviously been teasing me.
    “What?” she asked, all innocent and big-eyed.
    “You don’t actually believe in the devil and neither do I. Obviously.”
    “I don’t know,” she said with great seriousness, turning to face me. “My father believes in God, my mother believes in me, the Fascist believes I actually read all seven Harry Potter books, and everybody I know in this city believes I got into Dalton but that my parents had a midlife crisis that involved peat moss and sod. So who’s got a lock on what’s real?”
    I wasn’t sure what to think about all that, so I just said, “Okay.”
    She shrugged, agreeing, and then asked, “Doesn’t the devil usually make deals for your soul?”
    “I don’t have one, apparently.”
    “Awesome,” Roxie said. “Think he’d want my cell phone too?”
    I laughed. “If he shows up again, I’ll ask.”
    “Thanks!” She looked genuinely excited, her bright blue eyes all sparkly. “But about me not getting in anywhere…”
    “I will never tell anyone your secrets, Roxie.”
    She smiled, until her cell phone rang. She grabbed it, cursed, and picked up. “No!” she said into it, jumping up and dashing toward the door. “We’re at Grand Central, but…”
    I looked up the clock. It was 2:53.
    “Okay. Yup, yup,” she said, zigzagging through the crowds. “Track seventeen. We’ll be on it. Okay. Sorry, Mom!”
    When she flipped her phone closed she shook her head and said, “See what I mean? Total airhead, and she still believes in me. Nuts, right?”
    “That must be weird,” I said, and surprised myself when my voice cracked.
    Luckily Roxie didn’t seem to notice.
    We slumped against each other the whole way home, listening to Roxie’s iPod with one earbud each. Jenny dropped me at the curb, and I walked up the driveway feeling more okay than usual, despite the fact that I’d ingested more caffeine than in the rest of my life combined and also that I had just cut school and gone into the city without permission. Normally, any of those things would have me jumping out of my skin. Instead I was practically humming.
    Then I saw that Mom’s car was already in our driveway.
    I stood there paralyzed for a few seconds, feeling the best day of my year drain away fast. I am so busted, I told myself.
    Think!
    Think like the cat burglar you are.
    There was a trellis leading up the side of the house, covered in rose vines but still climbable. I dropped my backpack in the bushes and headed toward it, hoping I wouldn’t fall off the roof at the top before Quinn could let me in through her window.

8
    B ANGING ON Q UINN’S window unbalanced me, and I thought for a moment there that I was about to fall off the roof and splat to my death on the front walk. As I teetered, I had time to wonder if Tyler Moss would come to my funeral, and if Jade would give a speech talking about the depth of our friendship.
    I clutched onto the shutter until Quinn whipped open the window and yanked me into her room, criticizing me in her whispery voice before my feet even hit the red rug.
    I tried to explain to her that we’d missed the train, but she was interrupting me all over the place, and then I noticed that Phoebe, of all people, was standing there staring at me.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked her, really accusing Quinn, though. Leave it to Quinn to go blabbing about me when I confide in her, I was thinking. When I never would tell any of her secrets, especially not to Phoebe, who obviously knew something, because right away she asked if I’d cut school.
    Fine, I decided. Screw it. So I told her where I’d gone. She was shocked, which was kind of adorable, especially when she asked me why we’d gone into the city all by ourselves, like we were ducklings or something.
    I told her we had gone to become fashion models.
    Her face was priceless. Trying so hard not to betray the fact that she knew there was no