Read Online Someone Else by Rebecca Phillips - Free Book Online Page B

planes and angles like Michael’s, but it was attractive enough. Or it could have been, if he quit the brooding for one second and actually smiled.
    To pass the time, I began dreaming up possible reasons why he never smiled. Braces? Bad teeth? No teeth? Severe depression? I couldn’t pin it down. He was a jock, and most of the jocks I knew were noisy and obnoxious, always joking around. He and his friends were generally popular, and he was good-looking enough to have his share of girlfriends. As for his personality, I couldn’t say. He’d have to, you know, speak first.
    The bell rang for lunch. As I gathered my things, I realized I hadn’t heard a single word of the safety lecture. Beside me, Ashley slung her bag over her shoulder and glared at me sideways. I knew what that meant—she was going to ream me out as soon as we left the room. I slowed my pace, trying to delay the inevitable, and in doing so I was also able to eavesdrop on Jessica and Dylan, who were having a conversation.
    They were talking about someone they both knew, someone who had apparently gotten smashed over the weekend and threw up somewhere he shouldn’t have. Jessica made some kind of scathing remark, and that was when it happened.
    Dylan smiled. He smiled and I stared, but not because he had braces or bad teeth or no teeth or anything like that. Not even close.
    He had the most adorable dimples I had ever seen.
     
    ****
     
    “I’m switching groups in chemistry,” Ashley told me on Friday afternoon as we stood at our locker, getting ready to go home. “I’ve been thinking about it all week and today I made a decision. I’m going with Brooke’s group. It’s just her and these two boys who show off and act like idiots around her, so she needs me to act as buffer.”
    I stuffed my math book and two binders into my bag. “Okay.”
    “You know how I feel about Jessica.” She spoke quickly and without apology. “She’s so shallow and flakey. I mean, be friends with whoever you want, obviously, but I don’t have to like everyone you like.”
    “ Okay , Ash.”
    She gave me that disapproving look again. “And honestly, Taylor, I’m not a moron. I know it was your idea to work with Dylan because you wanted to throw me at him.”
    I pretended to hunt for my calculator.
    “It won’t work. Even if I did want to go out with him—and I’ve told you a million times that I don’t—I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be on board with the idea. He’s never so much as looked at me. Come to think of it, all he did during chemistry lab on Monday was stare at you .”
    I forced out a laugh. “He did not.”
    “He did too. I’d be careful if I were you.”
    “Why?”
    She slammed the locker shut. “Your boyfriend is hundreds of miles away with college girls all over him, and a cute guy right here in Oakfield has the hots for you. Do the math.”
    As if on cue, Dylan walked into the Dungeon and headed straight for his locker. Ashley and I turned away quickly, but not before I caught him giving me a brief once over. Apparently, Ashley caught it too because she whispered, “See?”
    There was no point in arguing. We both knew she was right. I saw it every day now, saw how he’d glance up when I walked into a room, saw him brighten when I spoke during lunch, felt his eyes on my backside as I passed him in the halls. All week, I’d been well aware of it. I was being watched, and it made me extremely uncomfortable.
    My agitation had only quadrupled by the time Robin called me at my dad’s house that evening. I was so freaked out, in fact, that I lost my head and did something stupid: she was having a party at her house tonight, and I agreed to go.
    My uneasiness over Dylan wasn’t the only reason I decided to go out. Neither was the fact that I hadn’t seen Robin in two weeks. Both of these things together would not have gotten me out the door. In the end, it was the phone call with Michael that drove me to the comforts of an old friend and