Because I'm Worth it by Cecily von Ziegesar Read Free Book Online Page B

shopping in Bendel’s, he’s probably gay. Why don’t you just go up and talk to him if you think he’s so cute?”
    Jenny was mortified. Just go up and start talking to him like some sort of desperate, stalking freak?
No way.
    “Come on,” Elise prodded. “You know you want to.”
    Jenny could barely breathe. Every time she thought she was getting more confident, something like this happened to prove that she was just as insecure as ever. “Maybe we should just leave,” she muttered nervously, as if Blair and Elise were about to rope her into participating in some shady drug deal. She picked her book bag up from off the floor. “Thanks for you help,” she told Blair quickly. Then she grabbed Elise’s hand and dragged her out of the store, keeping her eyes straight ahead as she passed the blond boy.
    Pathetic
. Blair sighed as she watched them go. But she’d been in such a good mood ever since Owen Wells’ call, it wouldn’t kill her to give Jenny a little more help when she so obviously needed it. She pulled the receipt for her dress out of her shopping bag and, using the rust-colored eye pencil, drew a big heart on the back of it and wrote Jenny’s Constance Billard e-mail address inside it. Everyone’s school e-mail addresses were the same, just the first initial and the last name, so it wasn’t hard to figure out. Then she crumpled the receipt into a tight little ball and walked past the skinny blond boy, tossing the balled-up receipt hard at his back and spinning through the revolving doors before he had a chance to see who she was.
    Blair Waldorf making an effort to do something nice for someone else? Talk about a makeover! This was more than just a Jiffy Lube change of hairstyle. Like a true diva, she was going for the entire weekend spa package, including the spiritual overhaul.

as if he didn’t have it good enough already
    Just as Aaron had suspected, there was a cream-colored envelope from Harvard waiting for him beside the Spode china milk jug of white roses on the side table in the foyer of his father and stepmother’s East Seventy-second Street penthouse apartment. Aaron let an extremely thirsty Mookie tear down the hall to the kitchen with his leash still on and picked up the letter with rigid fingers. Serena was waiting expectantly behind him, but he would really rather have opened it alone.
What if he didn’t get in?
    Serena slipped out of her coat and tossed it on the blue toile–upholstered chair in the corner. “I’ll still love you no matter what,” she said breathlessly.
    Aaron stared down at the envelope, annoyed at himself for feeling so tense. He was usually pretty mellow about this kind of thing. “Fuck it,” he declared under his breath and tore open the sealed envelope. He unfolded the neatly creased cream-colored piece of paper and read the short paragraph typed on it, twice. Then he looked up at Serena. “Uh-oh.”
    Her face fell. What a horrible thing for her sweet love to go through! “Oh, poor baby. I’m so sorry.”
    Aaron handed her the letter and she glanced at it reluctantly.
    Dear Mr. Rose, We have reviewed your application and we are very pleased to inform you of your acceptance to Harvard University’s class of—
Serena’s blue eyes were suddenly enormous. “You got in! Oh baby, you got in!”
    Behind them, Myrtle, the cook, walked briskly down the hall with a drooling, panting Mookie trailing after her. Her light yellow maid’s uniform was spattered with something orangey-red and she looked pissed.
    “Myrtle, Aaron got into
Harvard
,” Serena announced proudly. She put her arms around her boyfriend and gave him a squeeze. “Isn’t that amazing?”
    Myrtle was unimpressed. She thrust Mookie’s leash at Aaron, her fleshy wrists jangling with gold bracelets and her work-weary hands smelling of onions. “Better take that dog with you where you’re going,” she chided before stomping back to the kitchen in her new white Nike tennis shoes.
    Serena