Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
My best friend, in a moment of pure hilarity, pointed out that maybe it’s you. You’re keeping them from writing back to me because you’re a jerk. But I’m not that full of myself to think you’d go to such lengths to mess with me.
But that’s not the point.
The point is that, unfortunately, I’m stuck with you.
Look, I’m not going to beg but I’m also not going to let you keep me from getting a passing grade either. I tried to get my professor to change my assignment but apparently, he’s had it with me so I need to write this paper if I want to pass. So I’m willing to start over. But I need an apology from you in order to do so.
An apology, in case you didn’t know because I don’t think you would, is a regretful acknowledgment of an offense or failure.
It’s only fair.
Until next time,
Ms. Turner
To: Peyton Turner
From: Bo Porter
Peyton,
I didn’t think I’d hear from you again.
But I guess there’s something to be said about desperate times, desperate measures.
Now, your best friend, she sounds smart. What grade did she get? I bet she managed to scrape a passing grade.
Maybe I did keep them from writing back to you. But maybe I did it because I was doing you a favor. Because from what I remember, most guys in the pen pal program have at least been charged with one count of assault and robbery. Doesn’t sound very safe to make your cut. So then instead of demanding my regretful acknowledgment of an offense—thanks for the definition, by the way—you should be acknowledging your gratitude.
In any case, I’m not good at issuing apologies.
But since you’re unfortunately stuck with me, the least I can do is admit that I was a jerk to you and vow that I won’t be one in the future.
How’s that?
And if we’re doing this, you need to know that I don’t like repeating myself. So how about you stop calling me Mr. Porter and we can get this show on the road because I’m sure as hell not calling you Ms. Turner.
Bo
I’M NOT PEYTON TURNER.
I’m only pretending to be her.
This isn’t the first time, though. I’ve been doing it ever since she and I were both five. It started out as a fun trick with both of us dressing up like Ariel for Halloween one year and having people confuse us as twins and graduated to me going to her cello lessons because she hated the cello and I loved it, or attending detention at school in her stead so I had a place to go when things at home became too much to bear.
We’re not, though.
Twins, I mean.
We’re not even sisters.
Just best friends that somehow look very similar to each other.
We both have the same shade of golden blond hair and blue eyes. We are the same height, and growing up, we had the same build too. If we kept our heads down and didn’t make too much eye contact with the other person, we could usually fool them into thinking we were the other.
But then around the age of seventeen or so, things changed.
Puberty that I thought had passed me by caught up to me, making my body bloom differently than hers. It made my hips become rounder and my thighs all pudgy. My boobs went from a B cup to a full D, and my belly developed rolls. But Peyton remained as svelte and slender as ever.
So these days I pretend to be her in other ways.
I fool her boyfriends on the phone for fun because our voices are still freakishly similar and because pretend-flirting is the only kind of flirting I’ll let myself do and she knows that; I take her big brother’s calls when she isn’t in the mood to hear him lecture her about her low grades and partying. And sometimes when guys call me or send me their dick pics because somehow I always attract creeps, Peyton is the one to fend them off because I have zero experience with them. Oh, and I also do her extra-credit assignments—which I think are kinda fun—that include writing letters to inmates in prison. Or just one inmate.
She in turn goes shopping with me, and she did my hair and makeup today before I went to see said inmate. Nothing crazy, though; I wouldn’t let her, but still.
“Are you seriously not going to tell me what happened today?”
That’s her.
Peyton. The real Peyton Turner.
Cross-legged and with a determined look on her face, she sits in the middle of my bed among her scattered clothes and an open suitcase. Usually when she has that look, it’s very hard to deter her from the path she’s chosen.
But I still try.
I hold a bikini in each hand and wave them at her. “Which one?”