Out of Order by Casey Lawrence Read Free Book Online Page B

horrified. I’d begged Kate to borrow one of her dresses to wear for my speech so that I could look more put together than I did in my usual jeans-and-T-shirt combo, and then I had to go and ruin it.
    “It’s not your fault,” Kate repeated, having said it a half dozen times since we’d holed up in the bathroom together. “I don’t even care about the dress, okay? How’s your nose?”
    I tapped the bridge of my nose with one finger carefully. “It doesn’t really hurt anymore. Is the stain looking any better?”
    “No. Come out and let me take a look at your nose.”
    I shyly opened the stall door and peeked around it, keeping the rest of myself stubbornly hidden. “I’m not coming out. I’m half-naked, and this is a public restroom.”
    “Everyone’s in the auditorium already!” Kate protested, but she nevertheless wet a paper towel and began cleaning away the rest of the dried blood from around my nostrils. “I hope Rick and Jessa get back soon. You can’t be late for your onstage debut!”
    “I already told you: I’m not doing it!”
    Just when Kate was starting to get anxious about the time, Jessa and Ricky burst into the bathroom carrying bundles of clothes.
    “We brought options !” Ricky said excitedly. “We would’ve been faster, but Jessa wouldn’t break the speed limit!”
    Jessa pushed open the door to my stall, taking no notice of my near-nudity, and began holding up outfit after outfit to my body while Erica supplied her with the clothes. “This will fit you, but we wouldn’t want to wash you out… no, no, not black on black, Erica!”
    After a moment of fighting the flurry of fabric in my face, I gave up.
    Minutes later I was dressed in a navy button-up blouse that didn’t quite fit me in the shoulders, a pencil skirt that was a little loose at my hips, and a heather-gray blazer I couldn’t remember either of the girls ever having worn before. The end result was a very put-together outfit—if my nose hadn’t been blossoming a worrisome purple and my face hadn’t been pale from blood loss and nausea.
    “You know, this would be an easier fix if you wore makeup,” Jessa said after a moment contemplating my bruises.
    “She looks fine,” Kate countered. The look on her face was ferocious, like a mother bear protecting her cubs. “Don’t worry about it, Corey.”
    “I’m not going out there,” I said again, crossing my arms. The jacket pulled tight around my shoulders, clearly meant for someone a size smaller than I was. It had to have come from Ricky’s closet, then, but I couldn’t for the life of me imagine her wearing it. Maybe it had belonged to her mother.
    “You have to!” Ricky said earnestly. “Your mom’s in the audience!”
    Another wave of nausea passed over me. “What?” I asked faintly. “She can’t be. She’s prosecuting a petty theft case this afternoon.”
    “We passed her when we were pulling into the parking lot,” Jessa said apologetically, knowing the feeling of overbearing parents all too well. She often bragged about how wonderful it was to be the daughter of the owner of a chain of drugstores, but being groomed to take over for her father as CEO left her feeling boxed-in more often than not. “Your dad was with her too.”
    “Oh no.” I needed to sit down, but neither the floor nor the toilets were viable options, for obvious health concerns. “I’m going to be sick. I can’t do this! I don’t even have a speech anymore!”
    Kate pulled my cue cards from the back pocket of her jeans and offered them to me. She smiled softly. “You can still read them through the blood.”
    I took the blood-speckled cue cards from her with shaky hands. There was no way out of this now, not with my parents in the audience. I took a few deep breaths to calm myself, but it wasn’t working.
    “You guys go take your seats. I’m going to give her a pep talk, and she’ll be onstage momentarily,” I heard Kate say, her voice barely above a