Perfect Girl - Weebly

“I don’t know when the bus—”
“Just come home.” Then she hangs up.
My armpits instantly release a flood. “I’m so dead.”
“What did she say?”
“She called me Ruth. Aunt Marty never calls me Ruth.
I’m going to be grounded for life. I’m deader than dead.”
The exhilaration I’d felt all day drains out of my body
like air from a punctured bicycle tire. Perry reaches his hand
up and pats my shoulder.
Ten minutes later, the bus pulls up. Twenty minutes
after that, it stops in Odessa. By the time Perry and I say
good-bye, it’s closer to seven thirty than seven. I feel flattened
and wobbly.
“It was so worth it,” Perry says.
Yeah, his mother isn’t about to break the sound barrier
in his ear. Kissing Perry on the cheek, I turn to leave. He
grabs my arm.
“Ruthie?”
“Yeah?”
I face Perry Gould head-on.
“You’re my best friend,” he says.
For a nanosecond, the world falls away. We’re two space
sailors, home from our mission. That’s all that counts.
“I know,” I say. “I’m glad.”
I don’t want to open the front door. My hand hovers at the
knob until I hear voices inside and figure they’ll soon hear
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