Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen Read Free Book Online

weekends, cooking spaghetti for Marion and renting movies. Scarlett said that after his breakup with Elizabeth at the end of the school year, Michael just didn’t want to deal with the gossip. The day we went to the lake was the first time they’d risked exposure to our classmates, but it had been empty on the beaches, quiet, as we tossed the Frisbee and ate the picnic Scarlett packed. I sat with my Mademoiselle magazine, watching them swim together, dunking each other and laughing. It was later, just as we were leaving and the sun was setting in oranges and reds behind them, that I snapped the picture, the only one Scarlett had of them together. She’d grabbed it out of my hand the day I got them, taking my double copy, too, and giving it to Michael, who stuck it over the speedometer in his car, where it stayed until he traded the car a few weeks later for the motorcycle.
    By the beginning of August, he’d told her he loved her. She said they’d been sitting at the side of her pool, legs dangling, when he just leaned over, kissed her ear, and said it. She’d whispered it as she told me, as if it was some kind of spell that could easily be broken by loud voices or common knowledge. I love you.
    Which made it so much worse when he was gone so quickly, just two weeks later. The only boy who had ever said it to her and meant it. The rest of the world didn’t know how much Scarlett loved Michael Sherwood. Even I couldn’t truly have understood, much as I might have wanted to.
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    On the first day of school, Scarlett and I pulled into the parking lot, found a space facing the back of the vocational building, and parked. She turned off the engine of the Aspire, dropping her keychain in her lap. Then we sat.
    â€œI don’t want to do it,” she said decisively.
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œI mean it this year,” she said, sighing. “I just don’t think I have it in me. Under the circumstances.”
    â€œI know,” I said again. Since the funeral, Scarlett had seemed to fold into herself; she hardly ever mentioned Michael, and I didn’t either. We’d spent the entire first part of the summer talking about nothing but him, it seemed, and now he was out of bounds, forbidden. They’d planted a tree for him at school, with a special plaque, and the Sherwoods had put up their house for sale; I’d heard they were moving to Florida. Life was going on without him. But when he was mentioned, I hated the look that crossed her face, a mix of hurt and overwhelming sadness.
    Now people were streaming by in new clothes, down the concrete path that led to the main building. I could hear voices and cars rumbling past. Sitting there in the Aspire, we held on to our last bit of freedom.
    I sat and waited, shifting my new backpack, which sat between my feet, a stack of new shiny spiral notebooks and un-sharpened pencils zipped away in its clean, neat compartments. It was always Scarlett who decided when it was time.
    â€œWell,” she said deliberately, folding her arms over her chest. “I guess we don’t have much of a choice.”
    â€œScarlett Thomas!” someone shrieked from beside the car, and we looked up to see Ginny Tabor, in a new short haircut and red lipstick, running past us holding hands with Brett Hershey, the football captain. Only Ginny could hook up with someone at a funeral. “School is this way!” she pointed with one red fingernail, then laughed, throwing her head back while Brett looked on as if waiting for someone to throw him something. She waggled her fingers at us and ran on ahead, dragging him behind her. I couldn’t believe we’d spent so much time with her early that summer. It seemed like years ago now.
    â€œGod,” Scarlett said, “I really hate her.”
    â€œI know.” This was my line.
    She took a deep breath, reached into the backseat for her backpack, and pulled it into her lap.