100 Days of Cake by Shari Goldhagen Read Free Book Online Page B

planet that I don’t.
    â€œIt was hot out, and he was being nice.” All at once I’m angry with Elle. She was one of the people hounding me about “getting help” when everything started to fall apart, and now she’s inexplicably annoyed that my shrink is a nice guy. “What’s the big deal?”
    â€œIt crosses a line.”
    â€œWhat line? The common courtesy line?”
    â€œIt’s just not kosher.”
    â€œHow do you know? Because you always know how everything is ‘supposed’ to be?”
    â€œWell I know you’re not supposed to cruise around town with your shrink.”
    â€œV is right; it’s no wonder you never get invited to parties.”
    I regret it the minute I say it. Elle’s whole face collapses, and she looks like she used to in gym class when no one would pick her for their softball team because she was really skinny and small and had the hand-eye coordination of a drunk penguin with an old-fashioned medicine ball.My heart breaks, and I realize how much of a jerk I am.
    Without saying another word, she gets up, walks back to the kitchen, puts her plate and fork in the sink, and reaches for her hemp-weave eco-friendly bag.
    I grab her arm. “Look, I didn’t mean that.”
    â€œThat was a really shitty thing to say.”
    â€œI know. It’s just . . . I really like Dr. Brooks, and I’m doing a lot better than I was, right?”
    Elle shrugs. “I guess.”
    â€œAnd maybe he doesn’t do everything like some Dr. McHottie you saw on Grey’s Anatomy , but he’s honestly kind of great. So can we maybe lay off him for a bit?”
    She pauses and then sighs. “Sure,” she says.
    But it still feels weird. And even though it’s not even nine o’clock yet, I want to go upstairs to my model-home bedroom (with its upgraded window seat and stylish blinds) and fall into bed.

DAY 17

Red Velvet Cake
    T he high school swim team practices in the mornings before classes, which means getting up at five thirty a.m.—a bushel of laughs, I know. But freshman year, Coach Hartley and I were really obsessed with getting my split times down, so I didn’t even mind. Just to make sure I never slept late, I had Mom get me one of those old-school alarm clocks with the two bells on top. Back then I was so pumped to please Coach that I’d usually spring out of bed a few minutes before it went off anyway.
    It’s crazy that that was only three years ago. In the time before the model home, V and I would sometimes get into bed with Mom and have these marathon sessions watching sitcom reruns like Who’s the Boss? and Family Ties . One of our shows was Roseanne , and we all did this double take one season when they recast the oldest daughter. The newgirl was blond like the first one, and they were about the same age, but other than that, the second Becky was nothing like the original. I’m pretty much the second Becky of my old life—an entirely different person.
    Last night I set the alarm clock for ten fifteen so I could make it to my appointment with Dr. Brooks at eleven. It’s been going off for about ten minutes, and even though I’ve been lying awake in bed for hours, I can’t bring myself to reach across the nightstand and turn it off. So I let it gong and gong, the little bells on top going crazy.
    Maybe it was the fight with Elle or the whole thing with Alex or the trauma of seeing T.J. again, but it’s one of those days when the world feels like this expansive ocean and I’ll drown if I get off the life raft of my bed. The kind of day where I weigh ten thousand pounds and lifting my head would require one of those cranes at construction sites.
    Outside my room, Veronica is screaming at me, probably about the alarm clock; I bury my head under the covers.
    The door bursts open with so much force that the knob (a brass upgrade) smashes against the wall, and