The Opposite of Me by Sarah Pekkanen Read Free Book Online Page A

one Saturday night, then caught dinner at this little Italian place with the best gnocchi ever. Two bottles of Chianti later, we’d ended up at Matt’s apartment watching
Casablanca
(yes, we’d covered every possible romantic stereotype that night). As we sat side by side on his love seat (see!), I realized just how easy it would be to snuggle closer to him, to send a signal and see if he’d scoop it up and run with it. I could lean my head to the right and rest it on his shoulder. Six inches of space was the only thing that prevented me from forever changing the tenor of our relationship. The three glasses of wine I’d consumed made it all seem so simple.
    I turned to look at him, and discovered he was staring at me instead of the movie. Our faces were so close I could see tiny flecks of green in his brown eyes. I’d never felt any wild attraction for Matt before. He’s got a roundish face, curly dark hair, and he’s about five eight—he’s a teddy bear of a man, not a Harlequin hero who makes panties spontaneously combust. But in that moment, as I looked into his kind eyes with the smile creases at the corners, he was irresistible. So I leapt up and raced around his apartment, looking for my shoes and babbling about how tired I was. In retrospect, given that I was jumping around like someone who was repeatedly being mildly electrocuted, it probably wasn’t the most believable excuse. But I was terrified.
    What if Matt and I did get together, then broke up? What if my perfectionist tendencies—fine, neuroses—drove him insane and I couldn’t live with his habit of leaving his toenail clippings in neat little piles in the bathroom? (I’m not sure why this is the hypothetical deal breaker I came up with, but it’s probably best not to dwell on what it says about my psyche.)
    But in those frozen seconds as Matt and I stared at each other, I’d fast-forwarded through our relationship and leapt smack into the middle of our breakup, and I’d glimpsed what my future would look like without him. It was like looking into a dark, lonely abyss. If he and I ended up not liking each other, I’d have no one in New York who truly cared about me. I wouldn’t have a single real friend. Matt was the only personI could complain to about work, the only person I knew who loved black-olive-and-mushroom late-night pizzas as much as I did, the only person who still liked me when I was tired and anal and insecure. I couldn’t risk losing him—the abyss was too scary to contemplate—so I fled his apartment and hurried to the safety of my own. We hadn’t been alone in his apartment since; I’d made sure of it.
    “Turn right at the next corner,” Matt instructed the driver as we neared the club.
    “You ready for this?” he asked me.
    “Absolutely,” I lied. My heart was pounding again, and I felt light-headed, probably from skipping lunch. You’d think missing all those meals would be great for my waistline, but I heroically managed to make up the calorie deficit when I got home at night. Now, though, it was more than an empty stomach that was making me feel like I was about to pass out.
    “It’s going to be fun,” Pammy chirped. I smiled at her and tried to shake off my anxiety. She really was adorable; all sunny and petite and friendly. And did I mention petite? I’d work really hard at overlooking the fact that both of her thighs could fit into one of my pants legs.
    “You can let us off here,” Matt said, and he paid the driver while Pammy slid out.
    “She’s cute,” I whispered.
    “You think so?” Matt asked me while the driver painstakingly counted out change. It’s my theory that most cabdrivers take their time giving change in the hope that hyperactive New Yorkers will shout, “Oh, for Christ’s sake, just keep it!” and race away.
    We slid out of the car, Matt took Pammy’s witty-bitty little hand in his, and a bouncer stepped aside and pulled opened the door to Night Fever. A blast of music hit