Forty-Eight
I pick the Hello Kitty dress, not because Jed likes it—though I know he does, since he helped me choose it from the Vinnies Retro Shop—but because I like it. It’s fun. It’s the opposite of every dress I’ve worn in the past year.
I wear it with my Vans and stripy knee-length socks. I rummage around in the back of my bathroom drawer and find the pot of sticky star-shaped glitter I’d shoved back there a year before, when Viggo told me it made me look “juvenile”, and I carefully paste a few stars to the corners of my eyes.
I look up at the mirror and smile. I look like Connie again.
Well, almost.
I find my nail scissors in the drawer.
“Whoa,” says Jed when I walk back in the room. “Your hair …”
“Is just the way I like it,” I say, ruffling the short fringe I’ve just cut for m
