How to Look Happy Read Online Free Page A

beside the bed. The woman left no stone unturned. Luckily I don’t have to use it before I drag myself to the bathroom and let loose in there.
    Back in bed several minutes later, I’ve just downed the glass of water along with two ibuprofen tablets when I notice my phone on the floor next to my bed. I pick it up and click the home button out of habit, though the likelihood of anybody trying to reach me at 7:00 a.m. is slim. A text notification pops up, and I squint at the phone to read it.
    It’s from Carrie. No surprise. I figure she’s checking up on me and wonder for the millionth time how I got so lucky in the BFF lottery. The message’s contents are surprising, though: WAKE UP! WAKE UUUP! I’m coming over…
    Alarmed, I prop myself up on one elbow and swipe the phone’s screen to open my remaining messages. My half-closed lids pop open wide when I see that I have fifteen new texts. I have eight missed calls, too, but I didn’t hear any of them because my phone is set to silent.
    My hand shaking, I open the thread of texts from Carrie. She’s sent two others telling me to wake up, and I figure she’s the source of the missed calls. I scroll up to read the rest of the messages in chronological order. The first one came around 6:00 a.m.
    Can’t sleep. Worried abt u. Call me when u get up.
    The ensuing texts started coming about twenty minutes after the first. OMG. How did u manage this?? Thought u were passed out!!
    Get on FB, Jen. N.O.W.
    Calling…is ur phone on silent??!
    Wish I hadn’t locked ur keys in house! I’d come fix this myself.
    Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
    Wake up.
    Still calling. Wake UP!
    Forced into sober awareness by this point, it occurs to me that Carrie isn’t the source of all fifteen texts. Sitting halfway up in bed, my stomach issues all but forgotten, I fumble out of the message thread to find out who else is trying to reach me. Who all did I drunk-text last night? As the words “last night” enter my brain, my throat constricts with dread.
    The rest of the texts are from Jeremy, and at first they make even less sense than Carrie’s. As I read, though, fragmented memories of the events that occurred after we left the bar start flooding my mind. I scroll back through the thread and read.
    Call me.
    Call me now.
    Nev mind. We’ll talk abt this tmrw when u being rational.
    A half-hour long break between messages and then: Hope u got home OK. Guessing Carr took care of things?
    There’s another break, and I see that he’s sent the last two messages within the past hour.
    WTF!!! What RU trying to do to me??
    And then, finally, an ominous, Call me the second u wake up.
    As I read the last message, my doorbell rings, and I lean over the side of my bed to throw up.
     
    *  *  *
     
    The doorbell dings for the third time as I pad through the living room in bare feet, still wearing the rumpled dress I came home in last night. Simon is going crazy by this point—the doorbell sends him into a leaping, circling frenzy—and meanwhile my head is throbbing, and my phone is in my hand. I click the Facebook icon as I stretch up on my toes to see through the crescent-shaped window on the upper part of my front door.
    As expected, my view is of the top of Carrie’s head. The deadbolt isn’t locked, so I turn the lock in the doorknob and pull the door open. Carrie pushes through it immediately, talking a blue streak before I have a chance to say a word.
    “Have you seen it yet? Oh my God, Jen, I’ve tried to call you like a million times. Please, please, please, God, tell me you’ve taken it down.” She walks up behind me as I push the door closed and looks over my shoulder at my phone’s screen. I clutch it tighter, afraid she’s about to rip it out of my hand.
    “You’re freaking me out,” I say, my hands shaking as I glance down my Facebook wall. I have several new notifications, so I click the icon to view them and walk toward the couch as Carrie drops her purse onto the floor and