Eternal Spring A Young Adult Short Story Collection by Various Read Free Book Online Page A

furrowed her brow, her eyes turning to slits so
small I couldn’t believe she could actually see out of them. “TSTL?”
    “Too stupid to live. You know, like the dumb cheerleader in
a low-budget horror flick who goes into the scary house where the guy with the
chainsaw is.”
    “It just happens to be one of English literature’s greatest
masterpieces,” Analisa said with a disapproving sigh.
    She didn’t look away from the dressing room mirror so I
couldn’t be certain, but I was pretty sure Maya was rolling her eyes. Some
things never change. Whatevs. My friends just don’t have a sentimental bone in
their bodies. No wonder they didn’t have boyfriends, unlike me.
    Or did I? Sure, we’d kissed – a lot – but it
wasn’t like he’d asked me to prom yet.
    I’d had a crush on Craig Washosky pretty much since the
first time I saw him across the table in the cafeteria, way back on the day I’d
moved into my dorm here at Mountain Shadows. Thick brown hair artfully tousled
in a way that was supposed to look über-casual but took most guys a vat of gel
to achieve (although in Craig’s case, he probably did just roll out of bed),
eyes so piercingly blue you could lose yourself in the depths of the Caribbean,
bronze skin perfectly kissed by the Arizona sun during hours of pick-up
basketball on the quad…he epitomized the cliché of the tall, dark, and handsome
Hollywood leading man.
    Which he was, of course.
    Oh, that’s right. You’d know him by his stage name, Craig
Walsh. Yes, that Craig Walsh. At the beginning of the school year he was just an attractive
young theatre student in one of the nation’s most prestigious arts schools, but
ever since his film debut in First Down got all that buzz at Sundance a couple of months back,
he’s been “ The Craig Walsh.” The critics are even talking about a possible Oscar nod. Even
though it was a super small part, he’s spent more time recently doing the whole
red carpet thing than going to class.
    Ouch, that made it sound like I wished him ill will. I so totally
didn’t. He deserves all the accolades being thrown his way. For serious. He’s
enormously talented.
    It’s just that he never would have gotten that role if it
weren’t for me.
    Not to mention the one he was away in LA filming right now.
    The one where he was playing Jackson to Amber Alexander’s
Robyn. And that meant hours and hours of rehearsals and retakes of that super
hot kiss on page 236 of Bethany Beyer’s bestseller. You know which one I mean.
Yowza. I blushed just thinking of it.
    Yes, that Amber Alexander. There was no way I could compete. Especially
after that game of tonsil hockey, even if it was just acting.
    At least I hoped it was just acting. No way to know for
sure, unless you believed the tabloids.
    And I didn’t. Believe the tabloids, that
was .
    Much.
    “Give the girl a break, ladies.”
    Once I’d determined the source of the voice, I wondered when
Miss Piggy had sprouted wings and learned to fly. Clearly she must have, since
Hadley Taylor was defending me.
    Hadley unwrapped the satin ribbons of her toe shoes and shot
me a smile so sugary sweet it would probably throw my dad into a diabetic coma.
“Little Miss Dani just wants to know what Craig is doing out there in Cali. Or,
if you listen to the Informer — who.”
    I guess Miss Piggy was just as earthbound as Kermit after
all.
    “Why don’t you just STFU?” If looks could kill, Maya would
be doing life without parole. Oh yeah, she had my back. “Just because he dumped
your scrawny butt last summer—”
    “Speaking of scrawny butts…Dani, you still seeing the
counselor about that eating dis—”
    “Play nice.” As always, Analisa was the voice of reason.
    “—order?” Hadley let out an exaggerated overdrawn
sigh. “Fine.” She pulled several bobby pins out of her bun and let her
$300-a-month-blonde waves bounce over her shoulders, then glanced in a bulb-lit
dressing room mirror straight out of a 1940s musical