by Donna Cooner
For Karmen
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sneak Peek at Fake
About the Author
Also by Donna Cooner
Copyright
LUNA: GOOD MORNING! UP AND AT ‘EM, PEEPS!
CAITLIN: UGH! DON’T BE SO PEPPY. I’M TIRED …
ANNIE: THAT’S WHAT TOO MUCH EXERCISE DOES TO A PERSON.
CAITLIN: THAT COULD BE. *GETS BACK INTO BED*
ANNIE: *SENDS VIRTUAL COFFEE*
LUNA: UM, YOU GUYS KNOW IT’S A SCHOOL DAY, RIGHT? MY MOM IS DRIVING ME IN EARLY FOR MY EMERGENCY NEWSPAPER MEETING.
ANNIE: I KNOW, I KNOW. I’M TRYING TO DO MY MAKEUP BEFORE JAMESON GETS HERE.
CAITLIN: DID YOU SEE THE MAKEUP VIDEO MARIAH POSTED ON CHITCHAT LAST NIGHT?
ANNIE: SERIOUSLY. THAT GIRL NEVER SLEEPS. 1 IN THE MORNING AND SHE’S PUTTING ON LIPSTICK?? OVER AND OVER AGAIN?
CAITLIN: AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, WHY???
LUNA: YOU GUYS WERE WATCHING, SO … DUH
ANNIE: OUCH *TAKES KNIFE OUT OF HEART*
LUNA: PULLING UP TO SCHOOL NOW. GOT TO GO.
CAITLIN: AM GETTING OUT OF BED FOR REAL.
ANNIE: JAMESON IS OUTSIDE HONKING. SEE YOU TWO LATER.
If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.
—Paulo Coelho
“Stop honking!” I called, stepping out of my house and closing the front door behind me. I waved frantically until my boyfriend, Jameson, held his hands up over the steering wheel in surrender. I tucked my ruffled plaid top into my zip-ring denim skirt with one hand, while balancing my phone, book bag, and a sweater in the other. “I’m coming.”
My neighbor Mrs. Miron was walking her dog past my house, and she stopped with a scowl. Lulu, the pit bull by her side, looked just as unhappy. But then Lulu always looked like that. Honestly, I’m not a big fan. Of dogs, or Mrs. Miron.
“Sorry!” I said. Mrs. Miron and her pit bull just glared back at me.
I slid into the passenger side and slammed the door of the beat-up Chevy SUV. Throwing my bag into the back seat, I looked over at Jameson. He had sunglasses on and his mouth was set in a straight grim line. I wondered if the sunglasses were to keep me from reading his expression. I could still tell he was in a bad mood. Not the best way to start a Monday.
I flipped down the mirror on the visor and rubbed away smudges of mascara from under my left eye that never would have been there if he had not rushed me. I brushed off the thought and put a big grin on my face.
“Good morning,” I chirped, trying to channel the same energy my best friend, Luna, always displayed. “Did you know it is three o’clock in the afternoon right now in Paris?”
“What’s your point?” Jameson asked, still facing straight ahead.
“If we were in Paris, you’d be over your morning grumps and we would be sipping hot cocoa in some outdoor café.”
He responded with something like a grunt. Jameson was not a morning person. Neither was my other best friend, Caitlin, but she wasn’t quite as grouchy about it.
“We’re not in Paris,” Jameson mumbled, then put the car in reverse. “Obviously.”
I shrugged it off. Even though Colorado was definitely not Paris, it was still a beautiful morning. A burst of fall colors engulfed the trees on Mainsail Drive and a cool late-September chill made me slip on my black cardigan with a shiver.
Plenty of people travel to visit Colorado every year, I told myself. We should feel lucky we live here.
“Photo op,” I said, then leaned over to take a selfie of us. Jameson’s blond hair, still damp from the shower, curled around the neck of his navy-blue T-shirt and he smelled faintly like mint. Probably from the shower gel I bought him for his birthday in August. He still didn’t smile, but when I glanced down at the photo, I thought that only made him look cooler. Besides, I knew that, even on Jameson’s crankiest of mornings, we looked good together. Everybody said so.
Caitlin and Luna constantly teased me about my romanticized view of the world, but I didn’t care. I liked happy endings and the idea of finding someone who made your toes curl up in your shoes. When I started high school, I kept picturing myself with a boyfriend. Walking the halls hand in hand with a boy. Dancing to slow songs. Laughing at movies in the dark. Kissing.
And now I had all that with Jameson. We’d been together since last fall—almost a full year. And maybe it could be a little annoying, but I liked showing off our happiness on social media. Getting all those likes and comments somehow made our relationship feel stronger.
I studied our selfie. Jameson looked great, as always, but even though I’d pushed my chin out and angled my face in just the right way, my cheekbones had disappeared into the roundness of my face.
I quickly added a rabbit filter to the photo. The pink nose with the big whiskers hid part of my face—which was good—but I knew I was using way too many filters lately. It was becoming a habit designed to camouflage and conceal. People were bound to comment on it.
I blinked hard.
The truth was, I wanted to hide more than my face. Lately, it was as though my body craved to be bigger, rounder, and take up more space. My dress sizes kept going up. That was the reason I’d started posting pictures of my latest pedicures on ChitChat. Toes stayed the same size even when I didn’t. Where were the filters for curvier hips and wider thighs?
Maybe if I were more like Caitlin, constantly moving and always competing with someone, the weight would stay away. Earlier in the fall, for the first time, I overheard two girls talking about me in the hall at school. One said in a fake kind voice how sad it was that I was getting fat because I had such a pretty face.
Like fat and pretty couldn’t possibly go together.
I let my breath out in a long sigh, then posted the altered photo on ChitChat with the hashtags #schooldaze #cutie #2cool4school #Annson.
I’d come up with that special hashtag that combined our names—Annie and Jameson—last year, and it stuck. Whenever people posted pictures or videos of me and Jameson, they used that same hashtag. Jameson rolled his eyes at it, but I secretly loved that it made us seem like celebrities.
“You’re always late,” Jameson muttered, the sudden comment jolting me away from my screen. “That’s why I had to honk, okay?”
I glanced up from my phone. He used to think it was cute when I was late. Now, not so much.
“But I’m worth the wait, right?” I teased.
He shrugged, and I finally saw a hint of a smile.
Jameson turned the corner at the light and headed around the lake. I stared out the window at the geese on the water, thinking how only two months ago Jameson and I were paddleboarding right at that very spot. I’d posted an amazing picture on ChitChat of Jameson standing on the board, his arms spread wide. The sunset had peeked through the foothills behind him, surrounding his body with a warm golden glow. It was the per
fect burst of summer in one photo. The pink of the sky. The yellow of the paddleboard. The reflected mountains in the blue water. And Jameson, looking like a professional model, all blond curls and wet, lean muscles. It was easy to come up with the right hashtags. #rockymountainhunk #lakeday #summervibes
Now I scrolled through my feed to find the photo. I smiled. There. This was the Jameson I loved. Not that I didn’t love him in all seasons, but seriously, summer Jameson was the best. Everybody agreed with me because that image was one of my most popular posts. It even got a like from one of my favorite ChitChat travel influencers, @WaywardChild. Of course, I’d tagged her intentionally in the post so she would notice. But still. It worked.
I glanced up from my phone. The geese took off in a sudden cloud, and I wondered what made them decide all at once to leave. Did they ever lose their ability to stop following the crowd?
“I can’t believe the lake will be covered in ice in only a few more months,” I said. “I wish it was still summer.”
“But then you wouldn’t have any place to show off that new skirt,” Jameson said.
He noticed. I liked that, but I couldn’t help thinking he didn’t say the skirt looked good. I debated about whether or not to ask him, but kept quiet. Needy was never a good look on anyone.
“But there is one plus about the fall,” I said, then waited. He didn’t respond. “The Fall Festival,” I went on. “Discord will be playing there.”
“If we get the gig,” Jameson said.
Jameson was the guitar player and lead singer for Discord. The band just formed last year, but they had a great sound and some real talent. And that’s exactly what I’d told student council president Cheri Thomas when she’d started planning the Fall Festival earlier this month. On my recommendation, she’d asked Discord to audition to be the Festival band, and that audition was coming up soon.
I had no doubt Discord would get the gig. They’d been playing at coffee shops, but the Fall Festival was a real show. The whole school was going to freak out when they heard them, and I was going to be right there in the wings cheering Jameson on.
“Can you get a ride home from Caitlin today?” Jameson asked, his eyes on the road. “Or Luna?”
“Well, not Caitlin,” I said. My car situation changed when my older sister, Savanna, moved back home for college. Now we had to coordinate who got the one car we shared between the two of us. “Caitlin’s dad drives her, so she has to wait after school until he finishes football practice.”
“Oh, right,” Jameson said. “I forgot.”
That was weird. No one forgot Caitlin’s dad was the varsity football coach for Fort Collins High School. It was like being the daughter of a movie star. Especially this year, when the team was predicted to go all the way to the district championship. Caitlin herself was the star of the girls’ soccer team, but their season was in the spring.
“I’ll ask Luna, though,” I said, firing a quick text off to her. There was no immediate answer, but that wasn’t a surprise. I knew she was at her newspaper meeting.
The three of us—Luna, Caitlin, and me—grew up in the same cookie-cutter neighborhood. With the windows open in the summer, our houses were close enough to hear everything—phone rings, baby cries, dog barks, and even angry arguments. Caitlin always said we were either going to be best friends or mortal enemies. Thank God we turned out to be best friends. Inseparable since the start, we spent most of our childhood climbing over the low wooden fences of our yards and into the shared space in back of the houses. We went to grade school together. Then middle school, and now high school.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” I asked Jameson. “Are you rehearsing with Discord?”
The beat of silence after my question made me look up from my phone.
“I have plans,” Jameson finally said, his eyes not leaving the road.
I waited for him to elaborate, but that was it. Not wanting to make him even grumpier, I didn’t ask for any further explanation. Besides, he would probably tell me all about it later when he was in a better mood. We had no secrets.
The red lights flashed ahead at the train crossing, and Jameson mumbled under his breath when we slowed to a stop behind a line of cars waiting for the gates to go back up.
“I can have friends, too, you know,” he said after a moment.
It was as though he was having a conversation in his head and suddenly decided to include me in it partway through.
“Of course you can have friends,” I said.
“You hang out all the time with Luna and Caitlin.”
“Of course I do.” I frowned. Jameson never seemed to mind before that Caitlin, Luna, and I were all so close. Where is this coming from? Why is he being weird? “But you can hang out with us, too.”
“They aren’t my friends. Not really. They’re yours. They always have been.”
I was shocked. “How can you say that?”
“The only reason they are friends with me is because of you,” Jameson said. “If you were gone, they’d be gone.”
“Gone where? I’m not planning on going anywhere.”
“Yes, you are. You’re always planning … and dreaming about leaving here.” He didn’t sound angry, just matter-of-fact. And he was right. We both knew my ChitChat feed was filled to the brim with travel photos from all over the world. It was no secret I dreamed of jungles, beaches, cliffs, and sunsets. But mostly I dreamed of sharing them all with Jameson.
“I want to see the world, but I’ll always want to come home.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he finally muttered.
The conversation hit a dead end. I chewed on the nail of my little finger and looked down at my phone, my immediate response to escaping any awkward conversation or situation. Luna had written back to say she couldn’t give me a ride that afternoon because she had to do newspaper stuff. She’d added a bunch of sad-face emojis to show she was sorry. I sent a kissing face back to show I understood.
Jameson pulled into the school parking lot and found a space on the final row out by the tennis courts. He got out first and headed toward the building. I grabbed my bag, slammed the door, and then hurried to catch up with him. When we first met in middle school, I was almost a head taller than him. Now the top of my head barely reached his shoulder. We’d both changed.
Two freshman girls turned to look at us, then whisper-giggled as they walked by. I should have been used to it by now, but popularity via boyfriend was something I would never understand.
Usually, Jameson and I walked into school holding hands. But today we didn’t. And that—that last moment of weirdness after the whole weird car ride—gave me a pit in my stomach. Maybe Jameson wasn’t just in a grumpy mood because it was morning. Maybe there was something else going on. But before I could ask him what was wrong, the bell rang and we went our separate ways to class.
It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
—Agnes Repplier
Nobody should have geometry first period. Brains need to warm up before diving into theorems concerning triangle properties. But Ms. Garcia was way into it all, with a perkiness that tried to make the Pythagorean theorem sound ah-ma-zing.
I wasn’t buying it.
Iain McCloud was a center on the football team and sat in front of me. His huge shoulders were the perfect block to shield my phone from Ms. Garcia’s view.
I checked ChitChat and saw a new post from Luna—a picture of the journalism room, with its computers lined up just waiting for reporters to hop on and churn out the next big story. Her caption read: #thisiswhereithappens #breakingnews.
When Luna was eight, she wrote her first news story. It was an interview with one of our neighbors, Mr. Sanderson, about his garage break-in. The “robber” had turned out to be Mrs. Miron’s pit bull, Lulu, who lived across the street. So Luna tossed in some flying pigs, a magic shoe, and a garage door opener that led to a different dimension to make the article a bit more
exciting. I watched her carefully write Luna Ortega, age 8, on the top right-hand corner of the article, then crumple the piece of paper into a ball and throw it in the trash.
Luna said it was a very bad news story, but I knew it was only the start. I waited until she left her room to go use the bathroom, then dug the story out of the trash can and carefully smoothed out the wrinkled paper. I stashed the article in my backpack and took it home, because I knew the day would come that Luna would be a famous journalist and everyone would want to see how she began her career. And now, seven years later, she was on her way.
Ms. Garcia clapped loudly at the front of the room in an attempt to wake up her audience. Iain McCloud jerked awake in front of me, his head bobbing back as he made a loud yelping noise. I felt an intense desire to laugh, but managed to muffle it with a cough. I clamped my hand over my twitching mouth. Now was not the time to come down with a fit of the giggles and draw Ms. Garcia’s attention. I swallowed hard, trying to gain control. Then I returned my focus to my phone and sent a quick text to Caitlin.
ME: RIDE HOME TODAY? AFTER SCHOOL?
CAITLIN: YES BUT U HAVE TO COME TO FOOTBALL PRACTICE
ME: OK
CAITLIN: AT LEAST U CAN KEEP ME COMPANY.
Ms. Garcia cleared her throat. I looked up quickly and then, seeing a frown on her face, turned my phone over on the desk. When it buzzed again, I ignored it, but it wasn’t easy. What if it was Jameson, texting me to say he was sorry for how he’d acted in the car? I still felt unsettled at the memory of how distant he’d been.
“Okay. Who brought in an example from last night’s homework to challenge us all?” Ms. Garcia asked in her most authoritative boss voice, trying to break through the brick wall of silence. Ms. Garcia was one of the youngest teachers in the school, and one of the most stylish. Today her thick black hair was clipped back with three tiny butterfly pins that matched the flowers on her dress. But still, she managed to seem intimidating. “Go.”
Kacie Barrette—perky, petite, and too perfect—jumped up immediately to go to the whiteboard. She carefully drew two triangles on the board, then said, “Triangle A prime, B prime, C prime is the image of triangle ABC. Determine the angle of rotation.”
