Read Online Nice and Mean by Jessica Leader - Free Book Online Page B

fists. “Eee!”
    I grabbed my elbows so I didn’t do my idiot grin. She was right, though. I had nailed the credits.
    â€œTonight’s stars are . . .”
    Three of Chelsea: fine, fine, and not too bad. One photo of Crystal, cut from the scene I’d shot the day before.
    â€œOh!” Addie pouted. “My face looks so fat!”
    â€œWhat?” Her face was barely in the background. “It does not.”
    And then the Rachel photos.
    After Rachel with the pigtails, Addie burst out laughing.
    When she saw Rachel drowning in the Hula-hoop belt, Addie said, “Oh, wow.”
    And with Rachel in the halter top, Addie gasped.
    The music faded and the screen froze. I waited.
    And waited.
    â€œI know it’s not much,” I said, “but I’ve really only been working on it since yesterday.”
    Addie shook her head quickly. “It’s not that,” she said.
    What was her problem, then? “I know it’s a little long,” I said. Most
Victim/Victorious
credits were between sixteen and nineteen seconds—hello, squeegee. “But I wanted to include everyone.”
    â€œOh.” She was practically in a trance. “I didn’t even notice.”
    â€œSo?” I said. Was she going to make me ask? “What did you think?”
    Finally Addie looked up at me. “Are you sure you should show that?”
    I stared at her. “What?”
    She pulled her knees up to her chest. “I just . . .” With her hair half-up and her little gold ball earrings, she looked more like a fifth grader than someone in seventh. “I mean, isn’t she going to feel . . . you know . . .”
    What, I thought, feel
bad
? The way Rachel makes me feel every time she brags about Julian? Or when she laughed after I told her my parents took away my phone as punishment for the poll? No, we couldn’t possibly make Rachel feel
bad
.
    â€œThat was kind of the plan, Adds,” I said, circling the mouse over the word
Victorious
. “That’s what we talked about the other day. I mean, after what she did to you last weekend . . .”
    When I’d told Addie what I was going to do with
Victim/Victorious
, she’d admitted that the weekend before, Rachel had invited her to her house in the Hamptons and then ditched her and invited Madison and Chelsea instead. “It’s not right for her to dump you like that,” I told her now.“You’re her best friend.”
    â€œNo, I know.”
    â€œEven Elizabeth thought you should say something,” I reminded her, “and you know how much she hates in-your-face-ness.”
    Addie picked at her cuticles. “Yeah. I just—those pictures are so bad.”
    I was starting to feel weird sitting so high up, so I pushed back my chair and sat on the floor to face her. “She chose to wear those clothes,” I told her. “It’s not like we punk’d her, or put her head on someone else’s body. We’re just showing everyone what she chose to wear.”
    Addie didn’t seem convinced, though. “I guess.” She stuck the edge of her thumb in her mouth.
    Oh, come on. Not just the sucking on fingers, but the poor, poor Rachel pity party.
    Then I had a terrible thought: What if people agreed with Addie? What if they thought it was mean to show Rachel’s ugly outfits? If I was the only one doing it, they’d all blame me. If it was me and Addie, though, we could say, “What? It was a joke,” and people would believe us.
    I hated to admit it, but I needed Addie. Plus, I needed her sound effects.
    â€œHey, you know what?” I said. “I have some cute photosof her.” I hauled myself off the floor. “If you want, I can replace one of the photos with—hold on.” I clicked around. “This one.” It was a plain old shot of the four of us with Rachel in sweats, back before she chose to make her clothing a daily art