Good Girls

Good Girls
Laura Ruby

A Forever for the 21st Century.Audrey is a good girl: a good student, daughter and friend. She's also the last person anyone expects to be with Luke DeSalvio, the biggest player at school. On the night she dumps him, someone takes her picture doing something good girls just don't do…The next Monday, messages begin popping up on people's phones and email inboxes. Soon everyone knows, including her teachers, her mum and her dad… Now she must discover strength she never knew he had, find friends where she didn't think she would, and learn that life goes on – no matter how different it is to how you think it's going to be.

Good Girls

Laura Ruby

For all my girls…and for everyone else’s

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u60760590-a5ee-5f98-83b3-672783df18e6)

Title Page (#u7a56fc64-f094-51fc-91c1-522018e7816c)

Dedication (#u5e49fc7d-ad1a-5236-b6b4-926a62c7b888)

Beg Me (#uad546c0f-c66d-562f-9a8d-f332a3d5c570)

The Photograph (#ue975d890-9ae1-5b15-b2b8-0d12151bfb90)

The Gauntlet (#u2443a2c8-2b05-575a-9aa7-6eafeb4407f6)

A Beautiful Thing (#ubb45144f-08ee-52e1-97a1-aa51689dc0d1)

Once More, with Feeling (#u40be6f94-d89c-5647-a557-9cc2b6585296)

I Am Hamlet (#litres_trial_promo)

We Interrupt This Programme for a Special Report (#litres_trial_promo)

Bad (#litres_trial_promo)

The Other Audrey (#litres_trial_promo)

Pay Up (#litres_trial_promo)

Duck-Gilled Salad Servers (#litres_trial_promo)

The Slut City World Tour (#litres_trial_promo)

The Third Time (and Fourth and Fifth and...) (#litres_trial_promo)

A Long, Cold Winter (#litres_trial_promo)

Spring, Sprang, Sprung (#litres_trial_promo)

Sinner, Repent (#litres_trial_promo)

Love Hammer (#litres_trial_promo)

Born Again (#litres_trial_promo)

Here Comes the Bride(s) (#litres_trial_promo)

Stars (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)

Praise (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Beg Me (#ulink_e010e572-c368-538b-b3eb-b1bb40b11006)

Ash says she’s the Dark Queen of the Damned. I say I’m the Empress of the Undead. My dad, passing by the bathroom where we’re getting ready, takes one look and declares us Two Weird Girls from Jersey.

“That’ll work,” Ash says.

Tonight, we’re Goth. We’ve got the layers of black mesh shirts, the cargo pants rolled up to the knees, the ripped fishnets, the combat boots, the white face make-up and the smudgy rings of eyeliner. Ash brought a can of black hair spray, but she’s already used most of it on her curly brown hair. “Not sure if there’s enough left for you, Rapunzel.”

“Shut up and start spraying,” I say. My hair is blonde, and long enough to tuck into the back of my cargoes. Ash blackens the strands around my face and puts skunky streaks all around the back. The noise scares Cat Stevens—aka Stevie, The Furminator and Mr Honey Head—who is watching us from his perch on the toilet tank. He jumps down and dashes out of the bathroom.

“What did you do to Stevie?” my mom calls. I hear her murmuring, “Poor baby kitty. Little marmalade man.”

After Ash finishes, we crowd the mirror. “We are so hot,” she says. And we are. Dark and freaky and brooding, the way vampires might look. I should like it more than I do. My black bra doesn’t fit right, and the straps dig into my shoulders. The fishnets itch. It’s a stupidly warm night and I’m already sweating. Plus, I’ve got on so much mascara that when I blink, my lashes spike my skin.

It’s different for Ash. She’s sort of Goth-y anyway, with her pierced eyebrow and sharp cheekbones and the German swearwords courtesy of her Deutsch grandma. I lean closer to the mirror. “I should have bought contacts. In the store, I saw these green lenses with slanted pupils, kind of like a lizard.”

Ash frowns. “You have the coolest eyes on the planet. Amber.”

“Right,” I say. “Like that stuff insects get caught in.”

“Plus,” she says, ignoring me, “you don’t get contacts for one Halloween party.” Ash blinks her own dark eyes, lush as melted chocolate. “And you can stop being so cranky, please.”

“Sorry.” I bite my lip. “Can you believe this is our last Halloween together?”

Ash’s hands fly up. “Enough with the ‘Can you believe this is our last whatever?’ stuff. It’s October. We’ve got like eight whole months of school left.”

“More like seven.”

“Seven, then.”

“Six if you count vacations,” I say.

“Audrey, the key word is ‘months’. Besides,” she says, digging her elbow into my side, “there are more important things to worry about right now.”