Forcing Gravity Read Online Free Page B

and surfing and hanging out with my friends this summer. My life hasn’t been super-exciting.”
    It was true. It had been a slow summer. I hadn’t even dated anyone since Spring Break.
    “Until you were on the cover of Celebrity Weekly , that is,” my mother said, clapping her hands together with glee as her eyes lit up , and I finally realized what she was doing. She wanted the dirt on Garrett and me and our faux relationship.
    “Oh, yeah, right. That,” I said, trying to play it off. I did not want to get into that with her.
    “Yes,” she said, her eyes gleaming. “Truthfully, I always thought you would get togeth er with Ethan Lewis, but Garrett Lewis is famous , so I guess that’s even better.”
    I sighed. My mother was al l about status, and prior to eighteen months ago, she’d never have glanced twice at studious, serious Garrett, but now that he was an uber -celebrity, she was all about him.
    “Ethan is way hotter,” my sister chimed in.
    “He’s also too old for you,” my mother said, showing that she did in fact understand what it meant to be a mother.
    Skylar just pouted at this news, as if it came as a shock to her. Like Ethan would even look twice at her in that way . He thought of her as a little sister, but of course she was hitting puberty and noticing boys, and Ethan was quite noticeable, so I couldn’t exactly fault her. I’d had a crush on Zac Efron when I was her age, and he was several years older than me. I figured it was harmless.
    “So what happened, baby?” my mother asked then, a full pout gracing her plump, injected lips. “I saw how he broke your heart. I always thought he was such a nice boy.”
    She shook her head dejectedly, and I recognized the gesture as one I’d seen her do before when she had to act upset in a movie.
    “Mom, we weren’t dating,” I said pointedly.
    “Sure you weren’t, honey.”
    I swear , my mother was the only Hollywood celebrity who actually believed the stories the tabloids printed, e ven though she herself had been a victim of an embellished rumor a time or two. Of course, she just chalked those times up to publicity and waved the negativity away , assuming the magazine had just made a mistake in what they printed . ‘Any publicity is good publicity’ she’d said more than once, but I tended to disagree.
    “No, really, we weren’t,” I insisted. “ We were just hanging out. He was in town shooting some scenes for a movie, and we hadn’t seen each other in a while, so we spent some time together .”
    “Okay,” she said. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but just know that I’m here when you do.”
    I fought the urge to either laugh out loud or respond with some snarky comment , knowing it was just better to let it go . Instead I clenched my fists and smiled.
    “Thanks Mom. I appreciate that.”
    There was no way in hell I’d ever go to her with my boy problems . I’d go to Skylar first, and she’d never even been on a date with a boy . That was how much I didn’t value my mother’s advice .
    “Okay then,” my mother said, smiling widely. “Let’s go eat dinner.”
    That was it? That was all I got? We hadn’t talked since she’d called me to congratulate me on graduating in the top ten percent of my class , and all she wanted to know about my life was what had happened with Garrett? That blew. I wanted to kick myself for even thinking for one second that she might be interested in one real facet of my life. I knew better than that.
    I wondered how much longer I’d have to hang out before I could acceptably slip away to Ethan’s house.

 

     
     
     
     
     
    - 3 -
     
    I woke up early the next morning to go surfing and thought about inviting Ethan, but he’d said he’d be out late when we’d talked the night before. He’d been headed to the p arty of someone he’d gone to high school with and had invited me, but this was after he’d told me all about Claire Sunderland and how he hoped to