Free Platinum by Jennifer Lynn Barnes Page A

talking about any skin peeling that wasn’t spa-like in nature probably wasn’t the best idea. My visions were unpredictable, and the last thing I needed was a retrovision of some poor sap being tortured during the Spanish Inquisition, just because I’d accidentally tapped into something I had no desire to see. With a shudder, I elaborated on the sarcasm Fuchsia had wisely chosen to ignore. “She’s just getting married, Fuchsia,” I said, doing my best impression of someone who didn’t care. “Nothing scar-worthy.”
    “So it’s true.” Fuchsia jumped immediately on the first half of my statement. “Your mom and that guy are getting married?”
    “Yes,” I said. There was a long pause on the phone, which I finally filled by babbling. “It’s not like I want her to be alone forever.”
    “Of course not,” Fuchsia agreed readily, “but still!”
    “It’s not that big of a deal,” I asserted. Why should it have been a big deal? According to the town busybodies, my mom and Corey had been practically engaged for ages.
    “I mean, I guess it makes sense,” Fuchsia said tentatively. “She is still really young and everything. I mean, she had you when she was how old? Sixteen? When you think about it, she’s not even as old as the people on Sex and the City. ”
    My mother and the word “sex” in the same sentence? Fuchsia was the one who was going to scar me for life.
    “Do you think she and Corey will have a baby?” Fuchsia rushed on.
    “Fuchsia,” I bit out.
    “Yes?”
    “Not helping.”
    “Sorry,” she said, and for once, I really felt like she was. On days like today, it was easy to forget that Fuchsia had her good moments too, but she did. When we were twelve, she stayed up all night with me after our first scary-movie marathon because she knew I couldn’t sleep, and she would have been the first to go for the jugular of any other girl who’d hit on my boyfriend. She was a force to be reckoned with, and I had a long and drawn-out history of doing the reckoning, but at the end of the day, we were friends.
    “I’m telling you, Li, I can be over there, stat, with ice cream.”
    Considering that Fuchsia ate less than Tracy, who ate less than an undernourished gymnast, it was a very generous offer, but I wasn’t about to let her see me in emotional-breakdown mode. She may have been my friend, but she was still Fuchsia, and I hadn’t completely lost my mind.
    “Thanks, babe, but I just really want…”
    What did I want? The answer disturbed me.
    “I have to go to the library.”
    “The library?” Fuchsia asked, prickling at the fact that I’d turned down her offer. “Li, I knew you were upset, but I didn’t know you’d lost it. Just because your mom’s marrying into that family doesn’t mean you have to…you know…conform.”
    “Conform?” I repeated dryly.
    “More like Nonform. ”
    I snorted. “Conform” and “Nonform” didn’t even rhyme. Fuchsia totally sucked at making up new words. “For your information,” I told her, “I’m meeting Brock at the library. We’ve got a little study thing going on.”
    That got a response out of her. “Why didn’t you say so?” she asked. “God, Li, you scared me.”
    “You know me better than that,” I said, and it might have been the biggest lie I’d ever told. Fuchsia Reynolds didn’t know me at all.
    “Tell Brock I said hi and to forget about our plans tomorrow,” she offered sweetly. “He’s going to want to totally be there for you.”
    Their plans?
    I will not ask what plans, I will not ask what plans. I repeated the mantra in my mind.
    Forget what I said about Fuchsia not being all bad. I take it back. She was quite obviously a completely heinous person with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
    With one more silent promise not to ask what she was talking about, I made myself laugh in response to her words.
    “That?” I asked, pretending I’d been well clued into whatever plans she supposedly had with Brock.