Read Online Just You by Rebecca Phillips - Free Book Online Page A

whatever it was that kept her scarce on weekends. It
was just like old times. We loafed around the whole day, playing
video games with Em and Jamie, filling treat bags for tonight’s
trick-or-treaters, and pigging out on stolen candy. The instant
Lynn walked through the door at six o’clock, Robin and I had bolted
for her house. Which was empty. Again. He mother had taken to
spending entire weekends at her new boyfriend’s downtown condo.
    “I don’t get you, Tay,” Robin said as shirts
and jeans and shoes flew everywhere. “You have this amazing figure
and you never want to show it off. You’ll be sixteen soon…don’t you
think that’s a little old to still be a tomboy?”
    “You act like I wear greasy coveralls and
work on old cars.”
    She backed out of the closet, several shirts
draped over her arm. “If you’ve got it, flaunt it. Don’t cover it
up under baggy sweatshirts.”
    God, she was annoying. Sometimes she
seriously made me question why we were friends. “Is there anything
I do right ?” I picked up a bottle of sparkly pink nail
polish. “All you do lately is get on my case.”
    She dumped the tops in my lap. “It’s because
I see so much wasted potential in you. Now try these.”
    Wasted potential , I thought as I took
off my (baggy) sweatshirt. Whatever.
    Robin left to raid her mom’s makeup drawer,
and while she was gone I tried one of the tops she’d given me, a
black v-neck sweater that strained so much across my chest that my
bra showed right through it. Nope. Next I tried on a soft red
empire top, but I didn’t like the way it fell at my waist. Strike
two. I held up the next shirt—white, long-sleeved, with a low,
scooped neck. I knew even before trying it on that it wasn’t me.
And it wasn’t. It felt tight, itchy. Robin came back as I was
adjusting the hem along my hips.
    “Oh my God.” She froze in the doorway,
clutching a fistful of tubes and bottles. “That’s the one. Do not
take it off.”
    I yanked at the neckline, trying to cover up
what I’d been so careful to hide for the past two years. Ample
cleavage, indeed. “It’s cut too low,” I said. “And it’s tight. I
wear medium and this is a small.”
    “All my shirts are size small,” she said
with a pout. “But that one stretches. It’s fine.”
    I frowned at my reflection in the mirror.
“Are you sure?”
    “Yes. And don’t you dare put that sweatshirt
on over it.”
    “I wasn’t going to,” I lied.
    Dad was still out with the kids, supervising
their trick-or-treating, so my stepmom drove us to the movie
theater. Michael and I had agreed to meet there, which I thought
was smart. If things went south, being stuck in a small car
together would no doubt be uncomfortable. Having my own
transportation allowed me a sense of freedom.
    The smell of popcorn and soft pretzels
greeted our nostrils as Robin and I entered the theater. “There’s
no one here,” I said, glancing around the empty lobby.
    “Everyone’s in the theater,” Robin said.
“It’s a marathon, remember?”
    “What are we supposed to do, walk into a
movie already in progress?”
    “No, Devon told me they’d meet us by
the—there they are.”
    Devon and Michael were walking toward us.
Robin skipped up to Devon and threw herself into his arms while I
stayed put, waiting for Michael to reach me. When he did, he
smiled, and my whole body turned to mush. “Hi,” he said, and I
caught a whiff of cinnamon again.
    “Hi.” I was suddenly very conscious of my
boobs on display in Robin’s white shirt, now concealed under my
jacket. They’d stay concealed too, if at all possible. I did not
want anyone—especially Michael—to think I was trying too hard.
    “Are you ready for some blood and gore?”
Devon asked as the four of us crossed the lobby.
    “I’m ready for some Junior Mints,” Robin
said.
    When Michael paid my way in, I knew this
really had to be a date, and my nervousness increased tenfold. The
end credits for another movie