What Every Girl (except me) Knows Read Online Free Page B

“My dad still lives there.”
    We both walked the same. Our steps fell right into place. We were about the same size, if you were just looking at things in general. Taylor kept talking a little too quickly, like she was calming herself down.
    “We moved here because Richard got a great job and the real estate market here is about to boom.”
    “Richard is your stepfather?” I asked.
    “Oh, Richard is great,” Taylor said, even though I hadn’t asked if she liked him or not. “I knew him since way before my parents got divorced. He was already like family.” Taylor got to the door and I held it open.
    She walked through and stopped just inside the hall.
    I glanced at her schedule. “This way” I pointed.
    We walked down the hall together while everyone else was rushing to their classes.
    “Hi, Gabby.” Peter passed us.
    I waved.
    Amber was coming the other way. She was alone.
    “Hi, Gabby.” She nodded at me and then said to Taylor, “Hi, Taylor.”
    I had known Taylor less than a day, but it felt okay to kind of bang into her with my shoulder. “See,” I said with a big, everything-is-okay grin. “I told you.”
    Taylor smiled and leaned back into my push.

Chapter 7
    Taylor called me that very night and invited me to her house the next day after school. I didn’t need a bus note because Mrs. Tyler and Taylor’s stepfather, Richard Tyler, lived in one of the old historic houses near the school and we would walk. Taylor told me it was Richard who advised her parents to buy their co-op on the upper west side of New York City. That was when her parents first were married, so when they got divorced and had to sell it they made a fantastic profit. Her father stayed in New York City. Taylor said Richard was amazing at foreseeing property trends. I supposed that was good for New Paltz, real estate − wise, anyway.
    A cold front was definitely moving in from wherever they move in from, but I was determined to hold out until I went shopping with Cleo over the weekend. My winter coat was now unbearably ugly and therefore unwearable. Instead, I wore a lot of layers and a wool hat. Taylor and I crossed over the football field with our backpacks weighing us down. We would have to cut through the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, over the empty lot where there’s a hole in the chain-link fence, and up the hill to Taylor’s neighborhood.
    The Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot was nearly empty. The smell of sugar leaked out the back of the building through the roar of loud ventilators and an open rear door.
    “I love the chocolate glaze,” Taylor said and sniffed the air.
    She looked so funny; her nose pointing up, her backpack hanging down, the cold air coming out with her words like the steam from the Dunkin’ Donuts exhaust—I started to laugh. A real laugh, the kind you can’t stop.
    Taylor looked at me a minute and then she said it again—“I looove the chocolate glaze”—in this exaggerated voice.
    She broke out laughing, too. We laughed so long our stomachs hurt. We had reached the vacant lot and climbed through the fence, our laughter reduced to a few uncontrollable spasms now and then. Until I said it—“I love the chocolate glaze”—and we started all over again. All the way to her house.
    Mrs. Tyler opened the door before we even got there, as though she was expecting something new. Then I realized it must be me.
    I was laughing so much my voice was kind of louder and hoarser than it usually is. My eyes were probably watery and my cheeks were probably blotchy. I had this stupid leftover laughing smile on my face.
    “You must be Gabby,” Mrs. Tyler said, still standing in the doorway so we had to stop on the front step and wait.
    “Uh-huh,” I said. Loudly.
    “C’mon, Mom. Just let us come in first,” Taylor said. She was slipping her backpack off. Taylor’s mother took it from her and then let us in.
    I watched Taylor carefully. There was something here that was signaling me to be aware, a test.