Reel Life Starring Us by Lisa Greenwald Read Free Book Online Page B

the cultural capital of the world. Okay, at least the state. But that’s not even the point.” I stop talking and wait for her to look up from her phone. She finally does. “I know Sasha doesn’t live here. But that doesn’t mean we can’t find her.”
    Chelsea closes the yearbook and pushes her chair back from the table. “Look, my parents know everyone around here, and they don’t know Sasha and they don’t know her parents, so there’s no way we’re going to just find her.” She leans down and grabs a bottle of Vitaminwater from her bag. After an extra-long sip she says, “So can you just stop being weird and tell me what we have to do to make a decent video for this thing?”
    â€œWell, you have to care about it just the littlest bit,” I say. “Can you at least do that? I don’t know what’s so hard in your life that you can’t just do your part on this project.”
    I don’t know why I said that. My whole plan was getting Chelsea to like me, and getting her friends to realize I’m cool and like me, too. Criticizing people never really gets them to like you. That’s one thing I know.
    Chelsea starts sniffling. It seems like she might cry. Making someone cry
definitely
isn’t a way to get them to like you.
    She’s going to cry. I know it. Then I won’t just be weird. I’ll be mean, too.
    â€œFine, I’ll try,” she says at last. She doesn’t cry. At least that’s something. “I’ll take the recent yearbooks and I’ll put Post-it notes on the pictures of kids we should try to get in the video.” She huffs and then starts making a pile of the yearbooks. “Is that good enough?”
    â€œFine.” I open the next yearbook in the pile, the one from last year. “So who would be good on this page?” I start at the beginning of the alphabet.
    â€œUm …” Chelsea scans the page. “I don’t know any of those people.”
    â€œHaven’t you been going here since kindergarten?”
    She nods.
    â€œYou don’t know anyone in our grade?” I ask.
    â€œOkay, I know who they
are,
obviously, but I don’t talk to them.” She huffs again. “Let’s just go to the next page.”
    We get to the next page, and the only people she picks out are her friend Kendall and this boy Ross, who I actually know because he randomly came up and talked to me the other day in the cafeteria. He’s pretty much the only person I know here, besides Chelsea.
    â€œYou’re picking your friends,” I say. “We can’t just do a video of your friends.”
    â€œI can’t work with you!” she says, and throws down the yearbook. “You’re insane. You’re more insane than I thought at first.”
    â€œReally?” I ask. I’m not offended, just genuinely curious. What did I do that was so crazy?
    â€œReally.” She picks up her bag and makes a pile of the yearbooks.
    â€œGirls, if you’re using the yearbooks for the project, feel free to take them home,” Mr. Singer tells us from the circulation desk, interrupting our conversation.
    â€œThank you so much!” I say, and then realize I probably shouldn’t be this excited about taking a bunch of dusty old yearbooks home.
    Chelsea takes a few yearbooks and puts them in her bag. She raises her eyebrows like she also thinks it’s cool that we can take them home.
    I want to get back to our conversation. “Well, what would you say if I told you I could find Sasha Preston? And I could get her to talk to us?”
    â€œYou can’t find her. I just told you that. So I’d say the same thing—you’re insane.” She picks up her bag and walks out of the library, reading something on her phone instead of looking ahead. Then she stops and looks back at me. “But,fine, find her if you can. What do we have to lose? Just more