Too Good to Be True Read Free Page B

wrong thing. It’s confusing, like feeling hot and cold or right and wrong at the same time. That sounds so stupid. I don’t know why I’m so weird about Matt.
    Anyway, the whole conversation took maybe a minute, but it was an uncomfortable minute. My legs actually got shaky walking next to him. Next time Mom asks me to walk Gilligan, I’m going to tell her to ask May to do it. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know. Trying to decide makes me feel much more like the old April than the new, positive one.
10:02 P.M .
In bed
    I was just on the phone with Billy and Dad came into my room and we had the most annoying conversation.
    Dad: April, you look tired.
    Me (to Billy): Hold on.
    Me (to Dad): How would you know? You don’t have your glasses on.
    Dad: Lights out.
    Me: Dad!
    Dad: April!
    But the fact that dad is overbearing and half-blind is not the point. The point is that I love talking to Billy. He’s the only person I neverget sick of talking to. Whenever I hang up after talking to him, I look at my phone to see how long we talked. Tonight was fifty-three minutes. Our record is ninety-four minutes.
    Thinking about talking to Billy makes me think about talking to Matt today. I really don’t know why I’m thinking about talking to Matt. I talked to Matt for one bad minute and Billy for fifty-three good ones.

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.
    â€”Bette Midler
Thursday, August 22, 5:35 P.M .
In my garage
    Brynn just left. Practice for dance team tryouts officially started this afternoon in my garage. Brynn and I tried practicing yesterday and the day before, but somehow on both days May and June ended up in the garage with us and they did most of the dancing. Yesterday, May said I looked like a duck when I danced and June repeated it and then they both started waddling around like ducks. So today I asked Mom if she would take them with her when she went to do her errands, and it was just Brynn and me.
    Even though we really needed to practice, it was almost better when May and June were around.
    This isn’t going to sound like the “new” me, but I didn’t enjoy practicing with Brynn. Shewas so annoying. She kept saying that I should straighten my arms and point my toes and keep my head up. So I said, “Brynn, you should be doing those things too.”
    She laughed like it was ridiculous I would say that. Then she said, “You know, I don’t mean this in a mean way, but you do kind of look like a duck when you dance.”
    When I told her I didn’t see how she could say that, she said, “I’m just reporting what I see. Besides, May and June already said it.”
    Whatever. I didn’t like hearing it.
Friday, August 23, 5:42
In my garage, again
    More dance practice in my garage.
    The whole staying-positive thing is getting old fast. Brynn and I both danced to the song we’re supposed to try out to. “How do I look?” Brynn asked when we finished.
    I said she looked good. Then, instead of telling me I looked good back, she said, “Making the high school dance team as an eighth grader is a HUGE deal! I’m going to put an article about iton the FRONT PAGE of the school newspaper.” She looked at me like she was waiting for the full effect of her words to sink in. Then she said, “April, I hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings, but it doesn’t look like you’re trying your hardest.” She made this long speech about the importance of honesty and about how as my best friend, she thought she should be brutally honest with me. “That’s just what you do with people you love,” she said.
    But she didn’t have to be that honest. And if I’m being honest, I thought I looked better than Brynn. After she left, I called Billy. I was going to ask him if Brynn’s brutal honesty ever bothers him, but he didn’t pick up.
7:48 P.M .
    We just got home from