When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle Read Free Book Online Page A

wear tonight, whether I should put my hair up or down. Usually I’m fairly low maintenance. Olivia and Charlie are the ones with all the products—sprays, mists, and one disconcerting powder—but I want tonight to be perfect.
    “Hey, daydreamer,” Len says. He’s leaning over me, wearing that annoying entitled smirk.
    I snap to attention and realize I’ve missed the first half of what he just asked me. Damnit. Now he’s going to think I’m an even bigger idiot than he already does. Not that I care. I just don’t want to add any fuel to his fire, as my dad would say.
    “What?”
    “First day focus issues, huh?” He tilts his head to the side and gives me a sympathetic nod.
    “Should we just divide the assignment, or what?”
    He hands me a sheet of paper, his pink thumb lifted toward me.
    “It’s a birthmark,” he states.
    “I didn’t ask.”
    “You didn’t need to.”
    “Anyway,” I say, “which should I take?”
    “Why don’t you do the first five,” Len says, frowning and nodding. “We can discuss them all during class tomorrow.”
    “Didn’t know you were so organized.”
    “Add it to the list,” he says. Then he’s out the door before I even have time to think up a comeback.
    The student activities committee is for seniors only, but Charlie has been on since the tenth grade. Olivia and I were voted in at the end of last year, with Lauren, so we had a few sessions in the spring already. I saw pretty quickly that the whole thing was going to work because of Lauren. Her older sister joined when Lauren was a freshman, and Lauren has basically been taking notes ever since. Even though Charlie would probably disagree, Lauren is the fulcrum. Making SAC work is definitely her new seven.
    We’re trying to be involved, I guess, but it’s hard to get anything done when Olivia wants to use the hour to talk to Charlie about the current drama with Jake and whether Mr. Davis wasreally suspended for flirting with Darcy. For the record, I think that one is definitely true. Her tops are even smaller than Olivia’s, and she was constantly saying things to him like “Is that really what you want?” in response to him asking us to run laps.
    “Can we start?” Charlie asks. We’re all sitting in the PL, and it’s a quarter after three, which means we are ten minutes behind schedule. Which means Charlie is irritated.
    “Mhm,” Olivia mumbles. She’s on her phone, working the keypad, and she doesn’t look up.
    “I was thinking we should do a back-to-school dance this Friday,” Lauren says. “Something fun.”
    Olivia stretches. She’s lost the cardigan, and her belly button is practically poking out of her shirt. Lauren notices too and gives her a Please put that away look. Olivia ignores her and takes out a lollipop. Black licorice. Like Charlie’s Swedish Fish, she always has them on hand. “I already checked with Mr. Johnson. He said it’s fine,” Lauren says.
    “I think that’s good,” Charlie says. “Let’s call it Fall Back.”
    “I don’t get it,” Olivia says. She is sliding the lollipop over her teeth, a move that she knows majorly bugs Charlie. Apparently Olivia’s trying to get a rise out of her, probably payback for making a fuss about Ben this morning.
    “Like the time?” Charlie says, although what she means is “Duh.” She sends me an exasperated look that Olivia doesn’tcatch. I shrug it off. I generally do when Charlie puts me in the middle of her current Olivia annoyance.
    Truth be told, I’m not paying much attention either. I’m thinking about Rob’s knee next to mine this morning. How being close to him, even the thought of being close to him, makes my palms start sweating and my heart feel like it’s going to beat right out of my chest. What would have happened if we were the only two people in the room this morning? If he had leaned a little closer?
    “Hello, Rose?” Charlie says. “What do you think of Fall Back?”
    I blink. “I like it, I