Because I Love You Read Online Free

Homecoming.”
    I frowned. Would I even get to go to Homecoming? It was still four weeks away. How fat would I be in a month? “Fine. I’ll buy your shoes.”
    Heather smiled. “Hey, do you care if I ask Carter to go with me? As friends, of course. Oh, and only if you get a date. Which you will. You always do.”
    My heart sank to my knees. Did I care? Heck yes! But if I told her that, she’d want me to give her a reason why. And I really didn’t feel like spitting out, “I’m carrying his baby.” I’d have to let them go and make up some excuse for not being able to attend. Maybe I’d wake up with morning sickness again, and it wouldn’t be hard to pretend I was ill.
    “Yeah, that’s fine,” I replied.
    Heather patted my knee. “Maybe you can ask Mr. England to pay you a visit.”
    Ugh. She’d named my imaginary baby daddy. “Maybe.”
    She pulled into the parking lot of River Springs Prep. Heather linked arms with me as we walked into the school, wearing matching uniforms.
    “We’ll figure this out,” she said. “I’m not leaving your side.”
    A lump formed in my throat. Would she say the same thing when I told her the truth about Carter?

chapter three

    The halls of River Springs Preparatory School were covered in maroon and gold. Streamers hung from the ceiling, lockers were enclosed in wrapping paper, and everywhere students were dressed in some variation of school colors. Even Heather and I added to the ambiance in our cheerleading uniforms. We played our rival in football on Friday, which meant it was time for Spirit Week. Last year, it’d been one of the best weeks of my life. This time, it would be the opposite.
    Heather paused in front of my locker so I could exchange my backpack for the first half of the day’s books. I loaded my arms with textbooks then followed her down the hall. As we neared her locker, Carter approached us from the other direction, dressed in jeans and his football jersey. I fought every urge to run and duck for cover and instead forced a grin.
    “Feeling better?” he asked, stopping with us at Heather’s locker.
    “Yeah,” I replied. “Just some twenty-four-hour stomach bug thing.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “Wasn’t it more like forty-eight hours? You had me take you home on Saturday, remember?”
    Oops . “Oh. Yeah. Guess it was.”
    “Regardless”—Heather closed her locker—“Andie’s feeling back to her perky self. Which means she can shake her little pom poms and shout like a crazed lunatic all day. Because apparently that’s what cheerleaders do.”
    Carter walked with us as we made our way to first period. “ You’re a cheerleader.”
    “Only because Andie made me.”
    “I didn’t make you,” I chimed in. “You could’ve joined marching band.”
    Heather made a pssh sound. “And pass up the chance to look this hot in a skirt? Puh-lease.”
    Carter shook his head with a chuckle and dropped us off at our first class of the day—AP English. We were the only two juniors in the entire class. Well, us and Gwen, another one of our fellow cheerleaders. Where I excelled at science, Heather’s best subject was English. And as my love of reading knew no bounds, it’d been easy to keep up. Would I have to switch classes when— if —she realized who I’d slept with? My stomach did a backflip.
    Heather and I grabbed our seats in the middle of the room. I shook my head when she sent me raunchy texts about Tower-of-London-sized penises and English fetishes. She was trying to lighten the mood, but when I read, Did Mr. England have a whale boner ? I tossed my phone in my purse. We’d hear enough about sex when we visited the clinic after school.
    Ten seconds after the second bell, Mr. Bingham began his lecture. “Over the weekend, you should’ve finished reading Of Mice and Men . Now, who can tell me one of the main themes of the story?”
    I raised my hand. The book had been an easy read for me. “Loneliness?”
    “Yes, that’s part of it.