Read Something She Can Feel for Free Online Page A

toward the door in my sneakers.
    â€œI hope so. I want to get married, too! Get me a mansion and a Muuu-say-deess, Mrs. DeeeeLong,” she teased.
    â€œYou’re so funny.” I laughed.
    â€œSo, I guess I won’t see you until Sunday, then,” Billie sighed, walking out of the classroom behind me.
    â€œYou know Evan has all these plans.”
    â€œDang, I thought I’d at least get some time for girls’ day at the mall. We need to get you some new clothes.”
    â€œNew clothes? What’s wrong with my clothes? I look fine.” I looked down at my tan suit.
    â€œGirl, it’s time to step away from those two-piece sales at Belk,” she said, eyeing me. “You look like you’re going to church everywhere we go. Work—suit ... picnic—suit ... I think you wore a suit last week when we met up for dinner.”
    â€œI like my suits,” I declared, laughing at her little list. “And I can’t fit the itty-bitty teenager clothes you wear. I’m too big for that.”
    â€œFirst, you’re not that big. And second, haven’t you seen one Ashley Stewart?” she asked. “Thick girls are dressing divas now, too.”
    â€œI know, but I’m not trying on that stuff. I’ll look silly.”
    â€œDon’t knock it til you tried it!” She sucked her teeth slyly.
    â€œWell, I’ll have to ‘try it’ some other time. Because, like I said, this weekend, I’ll be wearing my suit to hang out with my husband .”
    â€œEvan. Evan. Evan.”
    â€œHater.” I laughed. “I’ll see you Sunday. We’re having dinner at my parents’ house after church, so you can come celebrate with me there.”
    â€œWill do, Ms. Journey. Will do. Ohh ... What do you think Evan got you this year? I know it’s something amazing. Evan knows how to give a gift.” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation.
    â€œI already got my gift.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œMy Juliet,” I replied. “Last week, Evan finally had a contractor come out to the house to cut the Juliet balcony into the side wall of the bedroom. Now I can look out into the sky as I fall asleep. See the moon. It’s like I’m sleeping outside. You know I always wanted to do that.”
    â€œNow that’s good living, ain’t it?” she said as we both imagined the Alabamian star show I’d been enjoying beside my bed each night.
    â€œIt is. It sure is.”
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    As I walked around the track, sweating fiercely beneath the lunchtime sun with the track team and a gym class running what seemed like light speeds ahead of me, I thought of what Billie had said about me not being excited about my birthday. I hadn’t realized how passive I was being. She was right. I wasn’t exactly running toward it—not the way I’d raced with cuddly kitten-clad calendars tacked up on my bedroom wall like posters for my thirteenth, sixteenth, eighteenth, and even twenty-first birthdays. Then, I was unable to be contained, felt free by the turn in time. My hips spread and swayed, my stance and step became more confident and in my heart, I believed the next year would be better, simply because I was older.
    But the older I got, the more I learned that being older only meant less freedom, less spread and sway, and more of an acceptance that things were probably not going to change. It was flat-out hard to be excited about that. I supposed Billie and I were trying to avoid this feeling by making our resolutions to slow things down a bit, but so far, little was happening. On an impulse, I’d applied for my passport and carried it with me everywhere I went, just hoping that having it with me would help me plan my trip to anywhere sometime. But Evan was too busy with work and I couldn’t go alone, so the thing just collected dust at the bottom of my purse. And it had company there, too—right next to the