Free All That's True by Jackie Lee Miles

movie. It’s all planned. He and Donna are going to shop by themselves and then we’ll meet up with them at Longhorn’s Steak House. I’ve already decided what to wear. One of the outfits Madeline put together for me. No sense in going back to dressing like a dunce just because I’m mad at her. I went to confession and told Father Murphy that I have hate in my heart for a friend and he said if I can’t forgive to ask God to do it for me, and gave me ten Hail Marys and two Our Fathers, and then absolution. I did ask God to forgive Madeline for me, but if he did it hasn’t done any good. Maybe it takes a while ’til I feel that I’m not mad at her anymore. So far I still am. Maybe God’s not listening to me, which is probably the case, because I did not confess what Anthony Morelli did up in the balcony. Father Murphy knows my voice so I couldn’t. I wanted to go to confession at another church so I could confess it to a strange priest that’s never heard me before but I couldn’t figure a way to ask my father without him suspecting I’d committed a mortal sin and get very nosey and start asking questions. So I just decided to leave it out of my confession entirely. Besides, I really didn’t do anything wrong. Plus I didn’t even like it, except for the first part of the kiss before Anthony pushed his tongue into mine. The first part was very nice. My stomach dropped a mile. And then out of the blue it took off like a roller coaster.

Chapter Twenty-six
    My mother is coming home next weekend and my father has planned a big surprise. We are all going on a cruise to the western Caribbean. We’re not leaving next weekend, of course. We leave the week after school’s out and I get to take Bridget! This will be my first cruise and Beth says she will help me shop for just the right clothes to wear. She has very good taste in clothes. She’s like Madeline that way. My father said Beth could come, too, but the wedding is two weeks before we leave so she’ll still be on her honeymoon.
    I don’t want her to go anyway. She’d just be trying to play tour director every day and Bridget and I just want to roam around the ship by ourselves. My father has sworn me to secrecy. I’m not to say a word ’til my mother is home and he presents her with the news. Howard and Vivian are coming, too. I can’t wait. It’s just so exciting—first the baby’s due and I’ll be an aunt, then the wedding, and then the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, Costa Maya, Cozumel. My life couldn’t be better and to think I thought it was going all wrong. And I’m hoping that my father will fall madly in love with my mother again and when we get home he will have forgotten all about Donna. Stranger things have happened. So it could happen.
    Bridget says, “Don’t count on it.” But I am counting on it. One should always be hopeful. It fills the air with positive ions, or something like that, positive energy fields. Ms. Schaeffer, my science teacher, insists it’s true.
    Madeline and Bridget and I are getting ready to leave for the mall. This is the weekend her father takes us and then we all meet up for dinner at the steak place. This is going to be an outstanding, memorable day. You know how you can just feel it almost to your bones? That’s what I’m feeling—all tingly inside. Plus my hair turned out. It’s long and blonde and the edges are cut just right, kind of like a gypsy shag. Beth took me. She’s turning into a real person. She wants me to look good for the wedding, so she had them experiment with me with putting it in an up-do before we left. But now I’ve combed it out and it looks great. I’m wearing my favorite jeans and a white shirt and a tapestry vest and these western-style boots I’ve had since Christmas. Madeline said, “Too cool,” when she saw them. I’m not sure why her opinion still counts, but it does.
    I can’t remember who it was that said never count on anything being what you think it will be, or