Twenty Boy Summer Read Free Page B

his blue glass necklace and Frankie's red bracelet.
    "We need to look out for her, you know?" he said. "I have to be the one to tell her. It's the only way."
    I know.
    And when he smiled at me, I promised. I promised him I would protect her.
    I promised him our secret would stay locked up for all eternity. And it will.
    three
    Stretched out on my stomach across Frankie's new purple comforter in a T-shirt and yoga pants, I read Rolling Stone 's Helicopter Pilot interview three times.
    "Brandywine." Frankie caps her lipstick and admires her pout before the aptly named vanity mirror. "It might be too dark for you," she says, handing me the tube, "but try it if you want."
    I don't need to try it. It will be too dark. My skin's so white it's almost blue, save for nineteen freckles that I hate, completely immune to peel-off pore strips and exfoliating citrus scrubs.
    "Frank, please. " I flip back to the beginning of the interview. We're supposed to be making our packing lists and mapping out all of the exciting things we'll do in California next month, but I've spent the last hour watching Frankie primp, preen, and fluff. "I refuse to get glammed up for this."
    "Who's getting glammed up?" Frankie asks. "I'm just -- oh, shut up, Anna!"
    Frankie gets glammed up for everything -- trip planning, movie night, grocery shopping, the rare event of taking out the trash. The earth could get knocked out of orbit by a bend in the space-time continuum, and as North America careens toward Europe at half the speed of light, with houses and pink plastic lawn flamingos and people's dogs whizzing by -- aroooooooof! -- Frankie would be like, "Hold on, Anna. Do I have anything in my teeth?"
    Frankie's always been the cute one, even when our moms dressed us in the same pastel sundresses or elastic-waist diaper jeans. But she used to be shy and sweet and a little awkward about it, even.
    Last year, when the shock of Matt's death wore off and she stopped calling for him outside his bedroom, Frankie withdrew into a cocoon like a baby caterpillar, lonely and uncertain. She wouldn't talk to anyone -- her parents, my parents, not even to me. Not in a way that mattered. Sometimes I wondered if I was going to lose both of my best friends from the same broken heart. But by the time school started again last fall, she emerged, metamorphosis complete, a brand-new butterfly who stopped crying, loved boys, wore sparkly makeup, and smoked Marlboro Lights in secret out her bedroom window.
    Now, wherever we go, Frankie enters the room like a dazzling black hole and, in accordance with my Fifth Theorem on Quantum Physics and Beautiful Girls, sucks up all the attention around her.
    "Anna, do you want it or not?" she asks. "Or not. It's too dark for me."
    "Suit yourself, Casper." She presses her lips together, blotting them with a tissue and dusting a layer of translucent powder on top.
    The Frankie remix. Perfectly applied glitter eye shadow, French manicures, trendy brown-black hair with red highlights flipping out around her chin and shimmering. "Anna" and "shimmer" don't belong in the same sentence. My hair is curly, all over the place, and looks an awful lot like wild hay if I don't apply enough gel. Other than the basics of moisturizing and proper hygiene, the last time I spent more than twenty minutes getting in touch with my inner diva was for the time I spent with Matt. Now, my makeup sits in the bottom bathroom drawer under an ever-thickening layer of sparkly pink dust.
    "You used to love this stuff," she says, rummaging for a lighter shade. "Here, try this one -- Moonlight Madness. It's got ground-up crystals or something."
    I shrug and focus on the pictures of Helicopter Pilot's self-appointed mascot, the Air Guitarist, until she gets distracted mixing eye shadow shades on the back of her hand with a Q-tip. I can't fault her for trying. She doesn't know about Matt, the ghost that floats in and out of my heart, haunting and unresolved.
    Don't worry. It's our