My Invented Life by Lauren Bjorkman Read Free Book Online

the engine. I go to her room anyway, and find Bryan ransacking her top dresser drawer. He closes it when he sees me.
    “If you want to check out some really cute underwear, come to my room,” I say. The second the words leave my mouth, I turn away in embarrassment. “Do-over,” I yell from the hall.
    I go back to the door. “Oh, hi, Bryan,” I say. “Did Sapphire post the playbill yet?”
    His eyes are sparkling. “Sapphire never showed,” he says, playing along.
    I sit down on the edge of Eva’s bed. He sits next to me so close I can feel his warm breath on my cheek. Suddenly my biggest fear revolves around unsightly earwax.
    “How’s it going with your dad’s girlfriend?” I say to remind him of our last intimate conversation.
    “The worst.”
    “You should ask Nico for advice. His mom has a live-in boyfriend.”
    “I don’t want to talk to anyone else about it. It’s too private.”
    His skin smells of sun-dried wildflowers instead ofcigarettes. The sexy scent soothes me and makes me stupid at the same time. Or at least that’s my lame excuse for what I say next.
    “Do you know that Eva . . . might be a lesbian?”
    He stares at me for a long moment. “You mean she’s gay? It doesn’t matter. You’re the one I’ve always wanted,” he says, wrapping his arms around me.
    Total drivel. One too many visits to Bryan Fantasy Land have wrecked my grip on reality
.
    When I say, “Do you know that Eva . . . ?”
    Bryan says, “Eva what?”
    “Thinks she’ll get the lead in the play.”
    Bryan looks puzzled. “Of course she will. Slam dunk.”
    “Doesn’t it bother you?” I ask.
    He stands up and paces the room. “Going out with the most talented girl at school? No. But I wonder what she sees in me sometimes.” He sags like BlueDragon when he gets pushed away from someone’s tuna fish sandwich.
    “Not true. You’re brilliant. You got the lead in
Hansel and Gretel
.”
    “That was years ago, and it wasn’t Shakespeare.”
    “You’ll be better at Shakespeare,” I insist.
    He moves in close again. “You’re good for me, Roz,” he says in a husky voice.
    “What are you going to do about it?” I whisper.
    He looks at my lips. “I can’t.”
    “Can’t what?” If you could see dignity, mine would resemble a well-chewed doggie toy. I feel more humiliated than during my first pap smear.
    Eva’s car engine coughs. I throw her pom-poms at him, wishing that they were spiky instead of fluffy.
    Eva the Diva waltzes in. “What’s going on?” she says.
    “We were just talking about how perfect you are,” I say. “Ciao!”
    After retrieving the photograph of Bryan hidden under my bed, I search the back of the closet for the hockey stick Dad gave me, a mistake on his part six Christmases ago. My zeal for the sport far exceeded my skill. Eva went to the emergency room with a fractured toe, and she wasn’t even playing. I place Bryan on the floor, raise the wooden stick over my head, and slam down hard. “Take that, you
dog-hearted horn-beast
,” I say.
    When I hear Eva’s footsteps coming down the hall, I throw my quilt over the shattered glass and lie on top of it one second before she throws open my door. With nary a comment on my odd lounging spot, she perches on the edge of a chair piled with dirty clothes, holding her back as straight as an ice pick. She softens me up with the silent treatment.
    “What’s wrong?” I picture myself as an innocent daisy.
    “You’re a villainous contriver.” Translation? She knows me too well.
    “What?”
    “That’s Shakespeare. It means you are a sneaky twit. What were you two doing?”
    “Nothing,” I say softly. Saying too much in my own defense might come off as lying, which, admittedly, I’m doing. “What did he say we were up to?”
    “Nothing.”
    “See?” I reach for my toes to hide the relief on my face.
    She sweeps a stack of papers from my desk onto thefloor. “I know what I know.” Her lips have a pale cast to