Falling Into You by Lauren Abrams Read Free Book Online Page B

holidays and will be able to turn the paper in after I return . She offered no further explanation.
    Of course, there was a good chance that she wouldn’t fail. I had seen the way the professor looked at her during the lectures . One quick afternoon of h armless flirting in his office and maybe so me not-so-harmless flirting, if she was unlucky, and the paper would be forgotten. I’m sure Sophia knew that.
    That’s just the way things worked for her. O n our first night out with all of the girls from our dorm , Sophia had told me that Greenview College was willing to overlook her “abysmal high school grades ” because her father had spoken to the dean about his willingness to be an “enthusiastic” contributor to the school improvement fund.
    I hadn’t yet seen the Pearce name on any libraries or athletic centers, but I know Sophia ’s father had probably been very enthusiastic, indeed. She had laughed about it at the time , but I could tell that it bothered her.
    Sophia wa s about the furthest thing from stupid that I could imagine, but she said that she didn’t care about things like classes or gra des. It took careful prodding to get her to admit that it was a blow to her pride that her daddy had to pay off the school just to let her attend .
    I sigh . Sophia would be Sophia . And she would be just fine.
    I wasn’t so sure about me. There were a million thoughts dancing through my head. Would my mom ever forgive me for ditching Christmas? Was Ben actually mad? Were he and Susan taking the annual tour of Christmas lights without me? What the hell was I going to do i n New York for the next two weeks ?
    But there was something else at the forefront of the thoughts. Chris.
    It was obvious that he had just sat in the booth because there weren’t any other ones available. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he wasn’t interested, even though he’d been incredibly nice and made a pretty good conversation partner . The niceness was a pleasant contradiction from the whole thinking I was the maid incident.
    I decide to forgive him for that. He clearly hadn’t remembered it, not on the balcony or at the coffee shop, and there had been a bit of real contrition in his face when I had teased him about it as I was walking away . Rich people always thought someone was the maid. And honestly, he wasn’t too far off.
    I open the door when I reach my room and what I find makes me slam it back in disgust . Just as Sophia had predicted, people had definitely found the bedrooms. Sighing, I open it again. T he girl, literally wearing nothing but a seriou s tan and a red lacy bra , shouts at me . “What are you doing in here?”
    “Um … This is my room. I think there might be another empty one down the hall, though. ” I’m trying desperately to avert my eyes. I have t o sleep on that bed .
    The guy is muttering obscenities and finally manages to get out a “Sorry, dude.” I hear the sounds of them scra mbling to get their clothes on, as I stand , embarrassed, outside of the door.
    This makes me angry. What WAS it with guys calling me dude? Did I look like a guy?
    Once they had managed to collect most of their things (a piece of lacy u nderwear remained on the floor), I dump all of the remaining coats in the hallway, all politeness forgotten in my eagerness to be alone. I lock the door behind me, throw the duvet off the bed , and stare into the big mirror on the wall of the attached bathroom.
    I definitely didn’t look like a dude. But I definitely didn’t look like Sophia , either. I looked at my features and tried to be objective . Everything was pretty average. Mousy brown hair. Blue eyes. An extra ten pounds that wouldn’t seem to come off no matter how many laps I swam in the pool.
    So, my face hadn’t magically gotten beautiful in the time since I had last looked in a mirror. I normally didn’t spend much time obsessing over my appearance (the brief moment of panic over my wardrobe earlier was pretty out of