Autumn's Wish by Bella Thorne Read Free Book Online Page A

loser. He doesn’t want me to be dead.”
    “You weren’t dead.”
    “You have no proof of that. What I’m saying is he showed you all that stuff so you can make changes now and stop all the bad parts from happening.”
    I nod, taking it in. “Okay. Okay, that makes sense. But what do I do first? Do I break up Reenzie and Sean so he doesn’t cheat on her? Do I steal Erick’s weights so he doesn’t become a muscle meathead? And how do I get Carrie’s tubes tied without her knowing it?”
    “All good plans,” Jenna says, “but maybe harder than you need. You know the butterfly effect?”
    “Yes, it’s a Kyler Leeds song,” I say.
    “Ew, really?”
    “Come on, it’s good! I have it on my phone; I’ll play it for you.”
    “Please don’t,” Jenna says. Now that I actually know Kyler Leeds and he’s done nice things for me, Jenna puts him down far less than she used to, but she still thinks his music’s unforgivably cheesy. “The butterfly effect is that thing that says something tiny, like a butterfly flapping its wings, can have this huge domino effect of changes that makes things really different.”
    “So I need to get a butterfly?” I ask.
    “No. You need to concentrate on one thing that’s easy to change. Changing that will change everything else. Then the next time you go to the future, it’ll be totally different.”
    That makes sense, and it’s not hard to figure out the easiest thing to change.
    “Reenzie said everything got bad for me when I freaked out about everyone leaving and I wouldn’t apply to school. So I won’t freak out. I’ll make myself the perfect college candidate, so applying won’t be a big deal at all.”
    “Yes. Excellent. Sounds perfect.”
    “You’ll hold me to it?” I ask. “You’ll make sure I don’t slack off?”
    “Of course I will. My life depends on it, remember?”
    I don’t bother telling Jenna again that she wasn’t dead in the future I saw. She won’t believe me anyway, and the truth is she’s right—technically I guess she could have been. We talk for a little more and then I slip out, leaving Eddy asleep in her chair. I call the pizza place before I leave Century Acres, so Erick’s and my dinner will show up soon after I get home. Before it does, I hop on my computer and sign up for the very next available SAT date, three weeks away at the beginning of October. I didn’t do so great when I took the test last spring, but back then I figured I’d just let it slide and trust that I’d get in
somewhere.
Now I know that’s not good enough. I want a
lot
of colleges to choose from. That’s why I choose a test date so close—if I flame out again, I’ll have time for another retest. I’d rather not do that, though, so I also sign up for an online prep class that practically
guarantees
at least a two-hundred-point jump in scores. Perfect.
    By the time I’m done, our pizza arrives. Erick tells me to give his slices to Schmidt, our basset hound. Erick would rather make a smoothie out of some protein powder Mom apparently got him last week.
    “Ugh, you sound like Jenna’s last boyfriend,” I say. “He was this total musclehead.”
    “Jenna likes guys with muscles?” Erick asks, intrigued.
    “
Some
muscles,” I say. “This guy was one of those workout heads who got so huge he couldn’t lower his arms all the way. And eating with him was a nightmare. He wouldn’t put anything in his mouth but protein shakes. She dumped him after their second date.”
    “Really?” he asks, sitting down and grabbing a slice of pizza. “Even though he was ripped?”
    I smile inwardly. The story’s a complete fake, but Erick has always been disgustingly in love with Jenna, and if he thinks she doesn’t like her guys bulked up, maybe it’ll save him from his ’roid-rage future.
    Mom gets home late, but I’m still awake, and she’s thrilled when I tell her about the pizza. She grabs a slice and a diet soda and takes them to the couch. I curl up