Best Friends...Forever? Read Free Page B

and a pen, and wrote her a thank-you note and then went into her bedroom to put it on her bed where she'd see it. She was big on thank-you notes, so I knew I'd better address the extra gift.
    Grandma hadn't liked it when Lucy was on her phone, so I knew I couldn't get away with checking my e-mail. It was just as well. Nobody had bothered to write me in forever.
    "Landry, show Grandma the pictures you brought from your last photo shoot," Mom said as I walked back into the room. I saw Lucy roll her eyes as I pulled the pictures out. Wow, I had to hear about everything Miss Perfect did, and she was going to show attitude over me handing Grandma a couple pictures? Unbelievable. I half-wished I had packed more stuff so I could waste an hour of Lucy's precious life going through photos of me. As she snapped her gum, I imagined myself going through the photos and boring her: "See, here I am with my head slightly tilted…and here it's tilted slightly more…and then slightly more...and then bam! Tilted the other direction. Can you believe it, Luce? Did you see that one coming?"
    After Grandma went through the pictures, Lucy went on and on about how "ah-maz-ing" school was going, and I started to tune her out. I wanted to bring up her secret tattoo, but then Dad would get mad at me for squealing. However, I did notice Grandma wasn't thrilled when Lucy brought up her boyfriend. How did Lucy even have time for a boyfriend with all her schoolwork and the fifty-thousand after-school activities she was doing? I wasn't sure what a co-chair on a committee even did, but it seemed like Lucy was co-chair on twenty of them. Apparently, that stuff was good for college applications or something, but I didn't want to have to think about any of that for a long time.
    It felt like everyone in my school was already starting to worry about college, which seemed crazy to me. Tori's mom was always on her about how things would look on her transcript for getting into schools. She was smart and a good soccer player. Why wasn't that enough? And if her mom was worried about that not being enough, then what chance did I have? I was just an okay student; I did better in some classes than others, like I was great at English and history, but math was just not my thing. And I didn't play any sports, but I liked to write, and I did some modeling jobs here and there. My mom said I could put that stuff down for college to show I was responsible and hardworking, but why couldn't I just be fourteen? Why were we expected to grow up so fast? It seemed like people were always yelling about kids and teens dressing too sexy and dating or growing up too fast, but everyone put so much pressure on us to be perfect. Plus, the teen singers and actors always acted like adults. I mean, some of them had serious boyfriends and they'd pose in their underwear in magazines. It was so confusing — grow up, don't act too grown up, act your age — what did that even mean? And it seemed like I was a kid when it was convenient for my parents and teachers and an almost-adult when they wanted me to be one.
    I would hear, "Landry, clean your room. You need to start acting more like an adult" one minute and "You want to stay out until eleven? Are you kidding me? You're just a little kid" the next.
    See? My mom needed to make up her mind — was I a kid or an adult? So annoying.
    While these thoughts were rolling around in my head, my aunt, uncle, mom, and grandma went on and on about some stuff in the news while Lucy sat texting and Bryan and my dad talked about football. I hated how Bryan tried to act so adult, but I hated the fact that Lucy didn't give me a second glance even more. After all, there was no one else anywhere near her age, besides her brother, to talk to, and she couldn't make time for me? And there wasn't anyone else around to see her talking to me, but I guess I just wasn't worth her time. If I had a little cousin, I'd make time for her. Even if I thought