Free Hard to Get by Emma Carlson Berne

decided, studying Adam as he turned away and opened the fridge. He’d taken his sweatshirt off and was now wearing a much-washed black T-shirt that read twisted sister. I never went for the self-consciously ironic retro hipster look.
    â€œSo, the soda’s all gone, but there’s, like, thirty different kinds of Arizona tea in here,” Adam said, his head still buried in the fridge. He craned his neck around to look at me. “Want one?”
    I nodded and sank down in one of the kitchen chairs. This day seemed like it had started a very, very long time ago. I’d just taken a gulp from the frosty bottle of peach-mango Adam had set down in frontof me when the kitchen door swung open and Becca stumbled in. Her blow-out looked electrocuted and her eye makeup was smudged—of course, because it was Becca, instead of resembling a sloppy drunk, she just looked attractively tousled. “Val,” she started to say. Then she stopped and glanced from Adam to me and back again. Her eyes narrowed. “Val,” she said pointedly.
    â€œBec.” I widened my eyes and tried to subtly indicate not a risk, not a risk. Was she blind? Couldn’t she see he was utterly not my type?
    â€œI’ve been looking for you for an hour .” Becca came over and tried to yank me up from the kitchen table.
    â€œHi,” Adam said—politely, I thought, since Becca hadn’t even acknowledged that he was sitting right there.
    Becca turned and stared at Adam. “Hi,” she said coolly. She turned to me. “Let’s go. I totally forgot I’m supposed to take tickets at that tennis thing tomorrow morning.”
    â€œI can’t believe you let your mom sucker you into another one of those,” I said, rising. Adam stood up also.
    â€œMaybe I’ll see you around, Val,” he said.
    I glanced at him sharply but he had already turned away to dump our tea bottles in the recycling bin. “Yeah,” I said slowly. “Maybe.”

Becca glanced at me as we approached the front doors of school Monday morning. “You look kind of … pale, Val,” she said. “Are you nervous?”
    â€œSort of. I didn’t even eat breakfast this morning.” I smiled at her and rubbed my sweaty palms on the side of my jeans. To help my plan, I was clad in another invisible-girl getup: a guy’s V-neck white T-shirt, saggy jeans I usually wore camping, and Tevas. “This is the first official day of the GNBP, after all. My new life is waiting for me!” I sounded more brave than I felt. I eyed the entrance ahead. The doors had been chocked open to let in the warm spring air and I could see the lobby already filled withkids milling around, sitting cross-legged on the floor finishing homework, leaning against the walls, talking on their phones.
    â€œBut you started the other night at the party,” Becca said.
    â€œI know, but this is the first real day—you know, at school, a whole day, that sort of thing.” I widened my eyes to impress on her the supreme importance of the occasion.
    She patted my shoulder as we parted ways by the lockers. “Go get ’em, tiger. See you at lunch.”
    By second period, I was feeling more confident, despite my rumbling stomach. I found an invitation to Kevin’s party on Saturday in my backpack, but even so, the invisibility outfit seemed to be working. I actually passed Brian North and Travis Gosdin in the hallway and they barely glanced at me. True, they were talking to each other at the time, but still, by the time I slid into my seat across from Kelly in calc, I was wondering why I ever thought the GNBP was going to be hard.
    â€œHow’s it going?” Kelly asked, looking up from her phone.
    â€œGreat,” I said, setting my messenger bag on the floor. “I feel really free, youknow?” Something was weird about my seat, lumpy. I looked down. Tinfoil was sticking out from under my thigh. I shifted