Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret Read Online Free Page B

them. The weird thing was that I saw them more clearly now in my mind than I’d ever been able to see them in real life. Why was that?
    Had I really thought Nick offered to drive Carly home all those times just because he was a good guy?
    Had I actually believed it was a coincidence they’d both shown up so late to Carolyn Fitzgibbon’s party?
    And honestly. What did I think they were talking about in the chemistry room that entire afternoon? Nobody else needed that long to get their labs done. Nobody else needed to stand that close.
    But the real kicker was Nick’s green hoodie. I’d seen it months ago in Carly’s bedroom.
    Her bedroom .
    What kind of crazy mind games did I have to play to convince myself that that was a-okay?
    Carly said I must have borrowed it and left it theremyself, but I knew that wasn’t true. It seemed weird even at the time. So why hadn’t I suspected anything?
    God had been looking out for me then. He’d left that hoodie there as proof—as irrefutable evidence —but I just refused to see it for what it was.
    Now, of course, I couldn’t stop seeing it. I kept picturing it on Carly’s floor and just the way it lay there—all unzipped and sprawling—practically killed me. I kept imagining Nick throwing it off, Carly pulling it off him, everyone pulling everything off, and I felt like such a moron. How could I have been so naive?
    The elevator opened on the twelfth floor. Long seconds passed. No one got on. I looked up. I was worried someone would be standing there, staring at me, but, other than a dusty fake tree in a plastic pot, the hall was empty.
    That’s when it hit me.
    The multiplex.
    I had to slap my hand over my mouth to keep from sobbing. Carly.
    I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to breathe.
    Standing beside that fake tree. Whispering in his ear. Her perfect little hand lined up against his perfect dark whiskers. The smile just starting to bloom on his face.
    I’d run into the theatre lobby late because I’d been working. Nick and Carly had both been off that day.
    They’d spent it together.
    My heart slammed head first into my chest.
    They must have spent it together!
    I suddenly knew why Carly kept agreeing to trade shifts with people. She wasn’t helping them out. She wasn’t being sweet, bubbly, everybody’s-little-best-friend Carly. She was helping herself. As long as I was busy working and they weren’t, she and Nick could be busy doing other things.
    My teeth started chattering. The elevator door slid shut.
    Not this again.
    It’s the little stuff that always sets you off. You think you’re okay. You think you’re almost handling it. Then you see a fake tree or hear the first three notes of “Nowhere with You” or catch a whiff of Crest Midnight Mint on someone’s breath and you just lose it. And all because, once, you saw them whispering by a fake tree. Or danced to that song with him. Or tasted Midnight Mint when he kissed you.
    And realize that’s what she’s tasting now.
    Next thing you know, you’re heaving and gulping like you’re drowning. You can’t even pretend you’re okay any more. Your mother has a doctor’s appointment set up before you’ve even uncurled your toes.
    I slumped against the metal rail on the elevator wall and tried to shake all that out of my head but it didn’tdo any good. Toothpaste, plastic trees, banana muffins, white T-shirts, whiskers, hands, feet, water, air—pretty much everything made me think of Nick and/or Carly. Nothing had been spared. These days, even my good memories had turned to crap.
    Anything I’d ever seen them do or not do was suspicious to me now. Everything was either proof that they were in love and couldn’t hide it or proof that they were in love and had to hide it.
    The elevator started to move. I threw myself on the stop button. What if someone got on and saw me