Forever Now (Forever - Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

effect on her. She was sound asleep.
    “Good morning,” I said, quietly, making my way to a safe distance away from her by the door. “7:15. Wakey. Wakey.”
    Mom stirred and turned onto her stomach. I had to get going, or I would be late for the first day of school.
    “Okay, then,” I said. “You’re awake, right? The coffee is by your left arm. Wakey. Wakey.”
    I sighed. If I left without waking her, she would Godzilla my ass. It took her at least an hour to get ready for work. Her eyeliner and curling iron took up a good twenty minutes. If she was late, she would blame me, but I had to be careful. She only had limited patience for alarm clocks. I bit my lower lip. What to do?
    “Ahem,” I said.
    “I heard you!” she yelled into her pillow. “What the hell! Just leave, already.”
    Phew. My work here was done. “Okay,” I whispered. “Leaving now.”
    I tiptoed out and ran down the stairs. Grabbing my Pop Tarts, I left the house, locking the front door behind me. That went smoothly , I thought. I had forgotten to remind her that it was the first day of school, but since I would be home way before she was, it didn’t really matter.
    My mother had defied all of my predictions and was still with The Boyfriend. It was probably her longest relationship. More often than not, she would sleep over at his house, or he would sleep at ours. Several times, I went in to wake her up in the morning but had to turn around in a hurry after taking in an eyeball-full of their canoodling.
    Blech. Shudder.
    I was right about Cruz. I never saw him again after the pool party. My mom and The Boyfriend never mentioned him—at least not in front of me—and I wondered if he was still in town or if he had given up on Mr. paella-and-wine and ran home to his mother.
    After my mom had ripped apart my notebook, I opened another one and wrote all about Cruz. This time I wrote slowly. Every night when the house was dark and quiet, I would slip into bed and write by the light of a flashlight. I savored every word, every memory, dragging them out, detailing all my senses that he had awakened.
    I filled two notebooks. Then, I kept writing. I wrote about the future. About possibilities.
    Cruz possibilities.
    I wasn’t kidding myself. I knew there were no Cruz possibilities. I knew there were only Cruz impossibilities. I mean, I wasn’t stupid. I wasn’t certifiable.
    But when you’re invisible, living with a mother who would rather you’d disappear completely, writing about Cruz possibilities was a comfort. By the first day of school, I had written about Cruz and me starting a Bed & Breakfast, going on a romantic yet doomed mission to Mars, and starring in the Twilight reboot together. Among other stories.
    Whenever I felt like I was living a Judy Blume novel or destined to be the new Girl, Interrupted , or that my dream to move to Paris was a ridiculous, impossible delusion, I would write about Cruz. With the movement of my Bic pen over my cheap paper, gone was the desperation, depression, and frankly, anger that stalked me morning, noon, and night.
    A seething furious anger that I never allowed myself to feel.
    I wondered if the Dalai Lama wrote about Cruz possibilities. I mean, he was always smiling.
    It was a twelve-minute walk to school. I timed it to arrive right when the bell rang. My survival instinct prevented me from hanging around the quad before school started. Invisible sucked, but it was better than being a target. Getting there right when the bell rang meant that I could slip into class and into a seat in the back row without anybody taking notice of me.
    I checked my schedule. I had humanities first period, which was usually my best class. Easy A. This year I had Mr. Lawrence, who was a new teacher.
     
    ***
     
    The room was packed. More budget cuts meant our class was bursting with forty-two seats. I took the one in the very back row next to the door just as the bell rang.
    Mr. Lawrence was young and good looking. He