What I Wore to Save the World Read Free Page A

planning your life, everybody knows that.”
    â€œWell, duh, obviously ‘everybody’ didn’t know that—”
    Together we pushed open the main doors of the school.
    â€œAdmit it, Morgan. You spent your whole junior year obsessing about Colin.” Always prepared, Sarah pulled the brim of her hat down low against the sun, but the light and heat hit me like a slap. “Too bad you can’t major in him .”

two
    by the time we walked back to the field they were already taking down the tents. Sarah ran off to find Dylan, who’d been stuck playing the cymbal part in “Pomp and Circumstance” all morning in the concert band. I stood in the sun and watched as the workers tried to fold each tent into a nice, neat, obedient square, while a gust of welcome breeze made the white fabric billow and fight back.
    Okay, fine: What color was my parachute?
    Was it the sparkling cornflower blue of Colin’s eyes? Or the soft red-gold of his strawberry-blond hair?
    Was it the cream of his fair skin, or the tawny peach of his freckles?
    Maybe it was the lush velvet green of Ireland, as seen from the window of an Aer Lingus jet.
    Maybe I should go find out. All I had to do was buy a ticket.
    Yeah, right. As if my parents would pay for me to go to Ireland just to see Colin. My parents had met Colin, and they liked him, but the notion of me being that involved with someone, at my age, was not their idea of wisdom. When Colin’s grandmother had died shortly after he got back from his trip to the States, I’d even hinted around about flying over to Ireland for the funeral, but they wouldn’t bite.
    He’s in college. He lives in another country . . . I could recite their arguments from memory. He has his own life. It’s time for you to plan yours, Morgan!
    When Sarah made that crack about majoring in Colin, I knew she was teasing me the way best friends do, but it hurt anyway. Probably because she was right.
    â€œI know you love him, but it’s such a long shot, Mor gan,” she’d said quickly when I ducked my head to hide how my eyes had suddenly filled with tears. “Why risk your heart on something that’s so unlikely to work out?”
    But isn’t that what you’re supposed to do with a parachute , a voice inside me whispered in reply. Close your eyes, take a breath and jump?
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    my mom, the queen of anti-clutter, was facing down approximately six thousand different pieces of paper, arranged with obsessive neatness in dozens of stacks that completely covered the surface of the table my family used to eat off of.
    College brochures. Course catalogs. Applications. Financial aid forms. I watched her march around the table, tapping each pile into perfect alignment with her hands while maintaining a strangely neutral look on her face in order to hide her hysteria about my impending failure to launch.
    Finally she spoke. “If you would take the time to actually read some of the brochures, Morgan, perhaps it would jump-start your thinking about college.”
    â€œI’m not stalled , Mom. I don’t have a dead battery.” I’d been in super-snarky mode ever since I got home from the graduation ceremony. Blame it on the sunburn. “I don’t need to be ‘jump-started,’ okay?”
    â€œSo forget ‘jump-start.’ What I meant was—”
    â€œIt sounds like you’re going to clamp cables to my ear-lobes or something.”
    â€œI said forget it!” She stopped marching. “I’m just saying, if you could bring yourself to participate in the college selection process, it might raise your interest level. You don’t even seem to be thinking about it.”
    â€œNot thinking about it? It’s all anybody talks about!” Whoops, involuntary eye roll. “I’m sick of thinking about it, that’s the problem.”
    Mom sighed her heaviest, most exasperated mom-sigh and