Free The Summer I Saved the World ... in 65 Days by Michele Weber Hurwitz

purse ina dressing room if you go out to get a different size,” she says as we get out of the car.
    Jorie rolls her eyes, which are pale blue, like faded jeans. “Bye, Mom. Love you.” She tucks her arm through mine and lets out a contented sigh. “I love the mall.”
    I laugh. She’s in her second home.
    We go into this store with way-too-loud music and a fake-friendly girl handing out coupons and spritzing us with perfume. Jorie takes a dozen dresses into a room. Colors called Morocco and Miami. (Red and yellow.) Jorie comes out and models them for me.
    â€œHow would I wear my hair with this one? What about shoes? What goes with yellow? The red one makes me look like I have more on top, don’t you think? Do you know Eli’s favorite color? The boy has to match his tie to the girl’s dress. I probably should eliminate Miami. Eli wouldn’t want to wear a yellow tie.”
    â€œAre you going to let me answer, Jor?” I smile at her in the mirror.
    â€œWhich is your favorite?”
    My nails still have little bits of the light pink polish she did weeks ago. I hold them up. “I’m pink; you’re red.”
    â€œYou’re absolutely right. I just want to try on that purple one.… ” She goes back into the dressing room.
    I walk around the store, trying to avoid the perfume girl (who doesn’t remember she already sprayed me), and I see Sariah, with a woman who must be her mom.
    Uh-oh. I don’t want to hear any more about frogs. And if I say hi and Jorie sees us talking, I know she’ll do that half smile with the corner of her lips pulled up. A
Who’s she?
smile. I morph into not such a nice person, pretending to be absorbed in a rack of tank tops.
    This erases, like, ten good things.
    Luckily, Sariah and her mom leave the store, and I don’t think she saw me. Or if she did, maybe she also spotted Jorie coming my way in a ruffly purple dress (Maui) and got it.
    Then I see it. A dress. I pull it out. Blue. Not even really blue, more like a hint of the lightest blue you could ever imagine. I have to summon vocabulary words to describe it. Words like “gossamer” and “ethereal.” If I was going to homecoming, I wouldn’t have to try on a dozen dresses. This would be it. If I got asked. Which is unlikely. Closer to impossible.
    On the way home, in the backseat of her mom’s car, Jorie turns to me. “I have a serious question. Why do you never text me back? Are you ignoring me or something?”
    â€œIt’s my phone. It’s possessed. Texts don’t always come through.”
    â€œNina Ross. How can you live without a phone? Sometimes I just do not
get
you.”
    I know.
    â€œBut,” she says, leaning her head on my shoulder, “I love you.”
    I know.
    â€œRemember at camp, when we jumped off the cliff together into that freezing lake?” she says.
    â€œTogether? You made me.”
    â€œI had to! That was the only way you were going to jump!”
    â€œWe screamed the whole way.”
    Hitting the water, I thought I was going to drown. I plummeted so deep into the shocking cold that I thought,
This is how I’m going to die
. Jorie grabbed my arm and pulled me to the shore. Then brought me my towel. Wrapped me up and rubbed my back until my teeth stopped chattering.
    She lifts her head. “It was fun that day. One of our best times.”
    â€œJor.” I blink back a tear, then lean against her.
    She takes my hand.
    For a split second of our lives, we are right there with each other.
    â€œI love you too,” I whisper.
    She closes her eyes. “It’s hard. So much effort. Being
on
all the time …”
    I think about her seventh birthday party. And now her new group. The guy with the plaid shorts throwing her water bottle.
    â€œThen don’t do it,” I say. “Just be yourself. Remember, everyone else is already taken.”
    Jorie shakes her