Breakable Read Online Free Page B

interested in what changed your relationship with Karyn.”
    Should
have known. This is about the mirror after all.
    I
roll my eyes to pretend I’m unfazed. “Why? What’s your point? She isn’t why I’m
here. Not really.”
    He
sighs and removes his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt. “Stacy, I can assure
you that none of my questions are pointless. If we’re going to get through this
today, you’re going to have to trust me to identify what is important and what
is not.”
    Trust.
    Now
there’s a word.
    Doc
returns his glasses to his nose and stares at me.
    Okay,
fine. Let’s do this.
     
     
     
    I’d
never been the girl everyone wanted to be, or even the girl people wanted to be
with. But as far as eighth grade, I hung out with the girls who were: Belinda,
Terese, and eventually, once she transferred, Karyn.
    Things
were never easy for me socially. I was a little too awkward. Too quirky.
Definitely too prone to running off at the mouth. But as far as the girls were
concerned, there was one day I always saw as the turning point, where
everything had gone wrong.
    It
started innocently enough.
    The
bell for break had just rung. I was walking past the tech wing with Karyn, on
our way to meet Belinda. Some guy walked past us – I don’t even remember who he
was – and flipped up my skirt. Right in front of a long, line of shiny windows.
The windows into the computer tech class.
    Wolf
whistles and cheering rose from the other side of the glass. I blushed and
shoved my skirt back down – it had caught on my bag somehow. Karyn’s
little-girl giggle turned into a hoot when some guy banged on the glass and
pretended to hump the windowsill.
    Cheeks
hot, I stormed off.
    It
was an embarrassing prank. Nothing more. And that should have been the end of
it. But it wasn’t the only thing upsetting me that morning. So I ran to the
bathroom at the end of the wing. It was one of those small, little used
communal bathrooms. One long mirror over two sinks, a couple cubicles and a
hand dryer.
    I
checked both stalls. No one was there. So I called Older Me.
    That
was back when she usually appeared almost immediately. She’d only shown up in
the mirror a few months earlier. I’d only recently accepted that she was real.
We were still getting used to each other.
    She
appeared, swathed to the neck in a thick hoodie as usual, took one look at my
tearstained cheeks and sighed. “What happened?”
    “S-some
guy flipped up my skirt right in front of the computer tech class. The one with
all the windows?”
    She
nodded tightly.
    I
swallowed. “Everyone was there. Even Karyn laughed…”
    “And?”
she said gently. It occurred to me that she was only six years away from this.
She probably remembered.
    I
tried to swallow the tears. They stuck in my throat. “Remember…remember how I
told Belinda last week that I…that I liked Finn?”
    Older
Me winced, but she nodded, her eyes never leaving mine.
    “I
don’t think Karyn knew. Or maybe she did, I don’t know…but…but she just told me
that Belinda likes him! Belinda’s going to ask him to the spring dance! Why
would she do that? She knows–”
    “Stacy,
don’t waste your tears on Finn.”
    “But…but
we’ve been spending a lot of time together since we barely get to see Mark.
And… I mean, he’s–”
    “I
promise you, he isn’t worth it.” Her voice was hard.
    “But–”
    “Stacy,
I’m not playing. Listen to me: You don’t want him. Don’t waste another second
on him.”
    “But–”
    “He’s
a jerk. He’d only hurt you.”
    “What
are you talking about?” My voice had slipped up an octave. “Finn’s my best
friend next to Mark!”
    “Not
for long,” she muttered. Her face twisted into a bitter sneer she directed at
her own hands, clasped in front of her.
    Then
I understood. I leaned onto the counter. Whispered. “What’s he going to do?”
    Older
Me froze. Then shrugged. But she wouldn’t meet my eyes. “It isn’t that. I just…
I just