Free This Is Me From Now On by Barbara Dee Page A

afternoon.”
    â€œSorry,” I said. “My cell was in my backpack. And I was at Francesca’s but I kind of got distracted.”
    â€œWith what?”
    â€œOh, you know. Talking about the project.”
    â€œReally? Well, you’re excused.” She rolled her eyes. I mean, over the phone I couldn’t hear her eyeballs actually rolling, but I was sure that’s what she was doing. That’s how well I knew her. “So how did it go?” she asked.
    â€œFine, actually. We had the house to ourselves.”
    â€œSweet.” She paused. “And did she let you try on all her glamorous little outfits?”
    â€œHey, Nisha, I
like
how she dresses. It’s original.”
    She didn’t answer. Which in a way
was
an answer. Then she said, “And you read the diary? It actually exists?”
    â€œOf course it exists.”
    â€œWell, I’m glad for you, then. At least it wasn’t a total waste of time.”
    â€œRight,” I said. I could hear Mom in the kitchen doing her Delightful Laugh. “No, it wasn’t.”
    â€œAaanyway,” Nisha said. Her cell was making a
swooshy
noise; probably she was moving to a Mrs. Guptil–free location. Or trying to. “Have you heard about Kayla? She’s going around telling everyone she likes Zane. She says he’s, like, the cutest boy in the eighth grade, and that he’s quote-unquote sensitive.”
    â€œTo what?”
    â€œI don’t know. Her, I guess.”
    I bit my lip. “I thought she was going out with Ryan.”
    â€œThey broke up. She caught him texting Sierra Kaufman.”
    â€œOh. Well, that’s . . . interesting.”
    â€œYou don’t even care?”
    â€œWhy should I? Kayla can like whoever she wants.”
    â€œOkay, Evie. I just thought you’d want to hear about it before school tomorrow.” Nisha sighed. It sounded like a tornado in my ear. “So you’re meeting us in the morning, right?”
    â€œActually,” I said quickly, “can you wait a few minutes ifI’m late? I need to return something to Francesca first.”
    â€œOh yeah? What?”
    â€œIt’s kind of a long story.” I suddenly felt warm, as if I’d shoplifted the earrings and just felt a security guard’s tap on my shoulder.
    But apparently Nisha wasn’t in the mood for a long story. “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Because if you’re going over to Francesca’s in the morning, won’t she want to walk with you?”
    â€œI guess.”
    â€œSo maybe we should just meet you at school.”
    â€œYou sure? I’ll be really quick, I promise.”
    â€œIt’ll just be easier. I’ll tell Lily.” Then she hung up.
    I went upstairs, surprised and hurt that my best friends were refusing to wait for me, even if (and we didn’t know this for a fact) Francesca would be tagging along. Plus, I really didn’t appreciate hearing all that stuff about Kayla and Zane. And why was Nisha obsessing about my Attic Project? It felt like she almost
wanted
the diary to be a fake. Which was incredibly weird of her, and also unfair. Because she had that amazing scrapbook; why should she even care about the diary?
    So it was perfectly okay that I’d lied to her about seeingit, I told myself. Even though technically I didn’t even lie: all I said was that the diary
existed.
And I had no reason to think that wasn’t true.
    But by now it was starting to bother me that we hadn’t written that letter to Isabel Beaumont. How exactly had we lost track of it? I tried to think about the long afternoon, how one thing had just led to another, like a rabbit scampering around a big, empty house. I couldn’t let Francesca mix me up like that, I scolded myself. Not if we were going to be partners on this project. I had to stand up to her, make sure we got focused. And I would. Starting tomorrow.
    I