Infinity Read Online Free Page A

had explained to me the concept of this, his creation. ‘The girl who
has everything,’ he’d said, moving his hands in a tight, circular motion, as if that were all it took to encompass something
so vast, not to mention vague. Clearly, it meant having a megaphone, some smarts and a big group of friends. Now, I might
have dwelled on the explicit irony of this last one, but the on-screen me was already moving on.
    ‘It’s all happening this year,’ I said. Now I was in a pink gown, a sash reading HOMECOMING QUEEN stretched across my midsection as a boy in a tux stepped up beside me, extending his arm. I took it, giving him a wide smile.
He was a sophomore at the local university and mostly kept to himself at the shooting, although later, as I was leaving, he’d
asked for my number. How had I forgotten that?
    ‘The best times,’ the me on-screen was saying now. ‘The best memories. And you’ll find the right
clothes for them all at Kopf’s Department Store.’
    The camera moved in, closer, closer, until all you could see was my face, the rest dropping away. This had been before that
night, before everything that had happened with Sophie, before this long, lonely summer of secrets and silence. I was a mess,
but this girl – she was fine. You could tell in the way she stared out at me and the world so confidently as she opened her
mouth to speak again.
    ‘Make your new year the best one yet,’ she said, and I felt my breath catch, anticipating the next line, the last line, the
one that only this time was finally true. ‘It’s time to go back to school.’
    The shot froze, the Kopf’s logo appearing beneath me. In moments, it would switch to a frozen waffle commercial or the latest
weather, this fifteen seconds folding seamlessly into another, but I didn’t wait for that. Instead, I picked up the remote,
turned myself off, and headed out of the door.
    *
    I’d had over three months to get ready to see Sophie. But when it happened, I still wasn’t ready.
    I was in the parking lot before first bell, trying to muster up what it would take to get out and officially let the year
begin. As people streamed past, talking and laughing, en route to the courtyard, I kept working on all the maybes: maybe she
was over it now. Maybe something else had happened over the summer to replace our little drama. Maybe it was never as bad
as I thought it was. All of these were long shots, but still possibilities.
    I sat there until the very last moment before finally drawing the keys out of the ignition. When I reached for the door handle,
turning to my window, she was right there.
    For a second, we just stared at each other, and I instantly noticed the changes in her: her dark curly hair was shorter, her
earrings new. She was skinnier, if that were possible, and had done away with the thick eyeliner she’d taken to wearing the
previous
spring, replacing it with a more natural look, all bronzes and pinks. I wondered, in her first glance, what was different
in me.
    Just as I thought this, Sophie opened her perfect mouth, narrowed her eyes at me and delivered the verdict I’d spent my summer
waiting for.
    ‘Bitch.’
    The glass between us didn’t muffle the sound or the reaction of the people passing by. I saw a girl from my English class
the year before narrow her eyes, while another girl, a stranger, laughed out loud.
    Sophie, though, remained expressionless as she turned her back, hiking her bag over one shoulder and starting down to the
courtyard. My face was flushed, and I could feel people staring. I wasn’t ready for this, but then I probably never would
be, and this year, like so much else, wouldn’t wait. I had no choice but to get out of my car, with everyone watching, and
begin it in earnest, alone. So I did.
    *
    I had first met Sophie four years earlier, at the beginning of the summer after sixth grade. I was at the neighbourhood pool,
standing in the snack-bar line with two damp dollar bills to buy a Coke, when I felt