Wide Awake by David Levithan Read Free Book Online

experimented. First came the Sports Irony look, where I mimicked Jesse’s baseballwear but upped it two notches too much. That struck out. Then I decided I would only wear that season’s big fashion push…which, unfortunately, was the W-neck T-shirt, heralding the Jagged Collar phase. As winter approached, I decided to layer—with a white shirt always on top and stripes or patterns always underneath. The Hidden Meaning look, which then turned into Mix-and-Not-Match when I ran out of white shirts. I spent a week in flannel hoodies—the Badass Lumberjack look. Then I started wearing things inside out. That lasted two weeks, mostly because kids kept pulling on the tags. Spring came, and I thought it would be cool to wear shirts that mimicked street signs. The Yield Caution look.
    The end came quickly. I ordered a One Way T-shirt and once it arrived I realized the arrow pointed to my crotch. When Mandy came over later that day, I held it up and asked her what I was doing. She told me I’d always had a style; I just needed to realize that style was like personality—it didn’t always have to be consistent; it just had to be something you lived with. I asked her how she knew that. She said she’d read it on an advice blog. Then she helped me bring all the W-necks to Goodwill.
    Now I didn’t try to have a style. There were just things I liked and things I didn’t like. It made shopping much easier.
    I watched as Jimmy wandered off to the retro section, holding up a pair of pleated stonewashed jeans and taunting me to try them on. Again, I thought about how I could be evil and go home and purchase them for his birthday. I knew Jimmy was really eyeing a pair of never-wash jeans, but I wasn’t sure never-wash said
I love you
the way I wanted to.
    “Check it out, la!” Gus called. He’d come out of the changing booth wearing a pair of you-fit 5143s.
    Mandy turned bright red. Janna giggled.
    “You might want to set them a little looser,” Jimmy suggested. “And wear underwear.”
    “I
am
wearing underwear!” Gus said. “But it’s no-line!” As we shook our heads, he headed back into the booth, emerging next with a pair of cordlessuroy pants and a fuchsia top, followed by a retro concert shirt for a band called TV Dinner.
    Since Gus had actual-purchased a pair of no-label you-fit 5142s when they’d come out last month, it was easier than it normally would have been for him to let the sales guy take the 5143s away from him after he paid.
    “Hombre, that was a big donation,” he said as we walked out. “I can’t believe how much those jeans cost. But, hey, it’s Stein Day. I don’t mind giving a little more.”
    I noticed there were a lot of other people who seemed to be non-shopping a little extra because of the news of the day. In the toy store, a little girl asked her mother if she could spend her allowance on the Worldwide Health Care Fund. In the bookstore, at least seven people waited on line with
Stein’s Guide to the Great Community
in their hands; I was sure they’d already read it, but each time they bought it, that much more money would go to Great Community initiatives, like elder care and culture care.
    While Jimmy was looking at books, I sneaked next door to the lamp store to look for a present. He didn’t exactly
need
a lamp—it’s not like he was living in total darkness or anything. But I was getting desperate. I went immediately to the back corner that held all the misfit lamps. Lava lamps gurgled. Neon flamingos perched. They even had a few in the shape of legs, even though those hadn’t been mod for at least ten years.
    I sighed.
    This was too hard.
    The evil presents were looking better and better.

    When I got back to the bookstore, I could immediately tell that something was wrong. Jimmy was watching an open channel on his phone, and he looked like he’d just been told a pet had died.
    “What?” I said, rushing over. “What is it?”
    “It’s Kansas,” he replied. The way he