Free You Before Anyone Else by Julie Cross and Mark Perini Page B

break an ankle in pointe shoes!”
    â€œNext time, I’m calling animal control,” Summer taunts from down the hallway.
    Still pissed and experiencing a mega adrenaline rush, mostly panic-related, I slam my bedroom door right in Summer and Elana’s faces. I stare at Jason’s name still up on my phone. What the hell do I say to him now? I can’t think of anything, so instead, I message Eve on Facebook so I can vent. I hit send before I remember that she’s probably enjoying crepes in France right now.
    ME: I think I’ve figured out which girl Summer was in high school.
    EVE: You mean Regina George?
    I laugh despite the anger still floating above my head like a dark cloud.
    ME: Exactly. Want to help me bury her alive? Or drop her off in Jersey. That’s probably just as bad. U can have her room.
    EVE: Actually…Alex and I are thinking about getting an apartment together.
    ME: That’s serious.
    EVE: I know, right?
    I can’t help being a gossip addict. I switch to messaging Alex.
    ME: An apartment together? What’s next? Marriage proposal?
    ALEX: Not until tomorrow. Duh. Who proposes on a Monday?
    EVE: He’s not proposing. Don’t listen to him. It’s a convenience thing, that’s all.
    Those two are way too cute.
    EVE: How was the rest of the party? We made our flight, luckily.
    I leave Alex hanging and answer Eve.
    ME: Well…things went in an interesting direction after u left.
    EVE: Details. Please.
    ME: Go have some European fun. I’ll fill u in when u get back.
    EVE: Come on! I’m dying here. Plus we’re on a train for the next hour.
    I hesitate before finally deciding to launch into a detailed explanation of the Eddie Wells story. We go back and forth for a good thirty minutes.
    EVE: U want friend advice or therapy jargon?
    ME: IDK. Neither. Both. LOL.
    EVE: OK let’s go with in between. Now is the time to be selfish. If u aren’t benefiting from these interactions with Eddie, it’s not worth continuing.
    ME: So don’t offer to feed and house him? And what about Jason?
    EVE: LOL. Kind of. As much as this pains me to say, Summer is probably right about Jason. But u never know. He did say he was about to call u…I can’t even begin to figure out his motives there. If any at all.
    Guess I’ll have to wait for next weekend and see for myself. And see him again, which hasn’t happened for almost a year. After Summer pretty much told him I was in rehab and a sex addict, it should be a fun catching-up session.
    My thoughts quickly drift from Jason to Eddie. It’s good that I have Eve to talk to about him, because my friends back home, several of whom I’ll see this weekend, would probably freak out about Eddie lying, saying he’s from Chicago. That part doesn’t bother me much, if I’m being honest. Maybe my months living in the city have changed me somewhat. New York is full of people hiding where they’re from, who they were before they got here. And it’s not like I didn’t deliver my own evasive answers to Eddie. I didn’t really tell him about my mom, not the most important part. I didn’t really tell him about the studio or why I haven’t danced in years. Or that the one thing I want more than anything is to reopen my parents’ studio, that I’m saving up to do just that, despite knowing my dad will be completely against it. So really, Eddie’s lie about his hometown seems minimal compared to what I skillfully left out of our conversations thus far.
    Eve told me once that Alex used to joke, back when we were all working on that CK shoot together, about there being an invisible fortress around me. I’ve never really thought of myself like that, a secret keeper. I figured that was more about me still being hung up on Jason and not ready to date again, but maybe it’s more than that?
    Maybe I’m just afraid to really want something—out loud, in