Free The Mosts by Melissa Senate

and act all the time. Elinor is tortured at school on a regular basis just for being herself.”
    “I see. So you’re going to teach her and the others how not to be themselves?”
    “Not not themselves, just not so … torture-able.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’ll be an interesting study, anyway.” She pulled into Elinor’s driveway. “Call if you need a ride home,” she said. She blew me a kiss, then drove off.
    And left me in front of Elinor Espinoza’s house. Which meant I really and truly had to do this, had to help them. Count to five. Okay .
    I raised my hand to ring the doorbell, but Elinor opened the front door before I could.
    “Elinor, you shouldn’t be so … eager,” I said. “Wait for the knock. Count to five, then answer the door.”
    “Why?” she asked. “I heard your car pull up. I was expecting you. Why not greet you?”
    “Because, that’s why. You don’t want someone to think that you weren’t doing something else. That you weren’t busy.”
    She furrowed her thick eyebrows. “Why would I be busy? If I was expecting you?”
    “Just wait for the knock next time, okay?”
    “You’re the Most,” she said, “so okay.”
    Oh God . For a while there, I’d thought that this wouldn’t be so bad, that it wouldn’t be so hard. Clearly it would be torture.
    “Everyone’s here,” she said, leading the way up the stairs.
    Elinor’s bedroom looked exactly the same as it had the last time I’d been over: really girly—the opposite of Elinor. Pale pink walls and pink and white ruffles on everything, from the curtains to the bedding to the rug, which had pink and white hearts.
    Joe was at her desk, by the window, looking like he wanted to flee at any second. He wore a dorky striped polo shirt, bright blue and yellow, tucked into khaki pants. And huge white athletic sneakers that even my mom had stopped buying for herself like five years ago.
    Avery sat on a pink beanbag under a framed poster of a fluffy white cat. She had on okay jeans and a yellow T-shirt with ruffles around the neck. Nothing that Fergie would ever wear, but nothing I hadn’t seen on some of the popular girls. She had standard hair, straight to the shoulders, with bangs that could use a little edge, maybe, but it was perfectly cute. With a little more makeup and better shoes, she’d look great. With her, it wasn’t about the clothes. It was something else. I just hadn’t put my finger on it yet.
    “Hi,” I said. “Um, so … does everyone have their forms filled out?”
    They all reached into their knapsacks and handed me their sheets.
    “So, are you all okay with me reading them aloud?” I asked. “Or do you want to keep them confidential?”
    “I’m okay with reading mine aloud,” Elinor said. “But I don’t mind if you guys want to keep yours private.”
    “I’m okay with it too,” Avery said. “We’re all here for the same reason, more or less.”
    Was that a little zing at Elinor and Joe for needing more work than she did? If it was, Elinor and Joe didn’t seem to pick up on it. Maybe I was just so trained at noting and decoding sarcasm and snarkiness.
    “Um, I’m not sure I want mine read,” Joe said. “Not that it says anything you guys don’t already know, but … I don’t know.”
    “You were honest in the questionnaire?” Elinor asked. “Maybe more than you planned to be?”
    His cheeks reddened and he nodded. “I guess seeing the questions in black and white like that really made me think about this stuff. I mean, really think about it. I get called a dork all the time, but I’m not even sure why, you know? I don’t get what I’m doing so wrong. That’s the problem, though, I guess,” he added with a nervous laugh.
    “That is the problem for all of us,” Avery said. “We don’t get what we’re doing wrong. But Madeline totally knows that. Firsthand.” She stared at me. “You were a total nobody in eighth grade. And then you transformed yourself into