Two or Three Things I Forgot to Tell You Read Online Free

our control—it’s no one’s fault.”
    Yes it is. It is your fault.
    If he doesn’t love you. Why should I love you?
    Coolly Merissa said it was all right, really she didn’t mind. She’d see Daddy on the weekend, he was taking her skating at the Meadowlands.
    Â 
    Merissa ran back upstairs. Shut—the—damned— door .
    Checked her cell phone, but just one text message awaited.
    CONGRATULATIONS MERISSA!
    HEARD TERRIFIC NEWZ U WILL LUV BROWN
    XXX COREY
    Corey was one of Merissa’s cousins—a niece of her mother’s. So quickly Merissa’s good news had traveled through the family, obviously spread by Merissa’s mother.
    Corey was nineteen, a sophomore at—where was it?—Sarah Lawrence. Typed at lightning speed and never looked back.
    Merissa erased the message without replying. Corey wouldn’t remember.
    The week had been too long. It was getting to be some kind of joke. She was sick with shame; Shaun must hate her.
    At Brooke’s party, he’d tried to kiss Merissa—in fact, he had kissed her, for the first time ever, trying to prod Merissa’s lips open with his tongue—but Merissa had (involuntarily) flinched.
    After so long, after years—being “friends” at school, attracted to each other—or so Merissa had thought.
    When Merissa stiffened and drew back from him, Shaun stepped back from her .
    A flush rising into his face. He’d stammered what sounded like Oh, hey—cool. Sorry M’ris.
    Merissa had insulted him, for sure. She had made an utter fool of herself.
    Shaun Ryan was a nice guy—basically—and he’d seemed sincerely sorry, he’d been too aggressive with Merissa; he’d misread her smiles at him, her warm, throaty, giggly laughter. But the other guys would know, and so Shaun would be embarrassed and quickly then he would come to dislike Merissa Carmichael.
    No way Merissa could text Shaun
    SHAUN PLEASE TRY AGAIN. PLEASE KISS ME AGAIN. I AM SO SORRY—BUT PLEASE WILL YOU TRY AGAIN. . . .
    No way. You get one chance.
    Anyway, Merissa had beat out Shaun and half the guys in the senior class, getting admitted early to Brown. They’d all applied; Brown was tops on their lists.
    But Alex Wren had been nice to Merissa, and Alex had applied, too. Desperately Merissa thought, Alex likes me! Maybe Shaun will know and be jealous.
    It was all so ridiculous. Tink was correct: You know when it’s time to bail out .
    Now again the shivery sensation rose in Merissa, the itchy excitement crawling along her skin. Eagerly her fingers sought out the secret, stitchlike cuts and scabs in her flesh, more than just the little cross in her abdomen—others, diamond-shaped, heart-shaped beneath her hard little breasts, on the soft curve of her belly, the insides of her thighs.
    Punished! You need to be.
    Now.
    â€œDisgusting.”
    Her flabby skin, Merissa meant. If you could pinch and squeeze flesh between your fingers, you were fat .
    All the girls at Quaker Heights felt this way. Utterly, utterly disgusting to be fat .
    How Nadia could bear to look at herself in the mirror, Merissa couldn’t imagine. Nadia’s features were pretty—especially her warm brown eyes—but her face was round as a plate and she had, if you looked at her sideways, an actual belly .
    Merissa shuddered. If she looked like Nadia, she’d slash her wrists.
    A text message arrived on her phone— NADIA.
    Merissa deleted it without reading it.
    â€œWhat does she want with me ? She isn’t my friend.”
    Merissa fumbled for a pair of scissors on her desk. Just a small pair of scissors, not the knife.
    Quickly pressing the sharp point of the scissors against the inside of her left forearm, at the elbow. (Higher on Merissa’s arm were several small, scabby wounds like tattoos.) Just a swift gesture, piercing the skin to relieve pressure in her lungs so that she could breathe.
    The