to lace the darn things up. Once I do, my outfit is complete.
I stare at my reflection in Mom’s full-length mirror, admiring the brand-new me. The improved me. I am no longer Ellie Sparks. I am Elle, the confident, sultry, ready-for-anything vixen. There’s no way Tristan—or any other guy on this planet—will be able to resist Elle.
Ooh, which reminds me. I dig my phone out of my bag and see the two text messages from Tristan.
Tristan: I can’t stop thinking about last night.
Tristan: Let’s talk today.
I quickly tap out the response I spent an hour formulating last night as I was trying to fall asleep.
Me: Oh, I’ll give you something to talk about, Tristan Wheeler.
I press Send with a giddy squeal and start down the stairs. I saunter into the kitchen like I’m on a fashion week runway in Paris. The Family Circus comes to a screeching halt. Hadley slams her book closed. My dad’s iPad nearly falls from his hands. My mom—who is about to slam a kitchen cabinet closed—lets her arms fall limply to her sides.
I grab an apple from the fruit basket and take a big, luscious bite.
Toast is for softies. New girl. New diet.
“What?” I ask, my mouth full of pulpy fruit.
I wait for the protests to begin. This is the part where my dad says, “There’s no way you’re leaving the house wearing that, young lady!” Or, “Go back upstairs and try again, missy!” Or, “Honey, I think you forgot to put your pants on.”
But it never comes.
Every member of my family is way too stunned to say anything. Well, except Hadley, who whispers, “Told you,” to my mom.
I grab my umbrella and swagger to the garage door, stopping long enough to turn around and say, “Oh, Mom. I borrowed your shoes. I hope that’s okay.”
She nods dazedly.
“Aren’t they bitchin’?” I ask Hadley, staring down at my feet. I pull my phone out and take a quick picture. “Shoefie!”
Then I disappear into the garage.
What I wouldn’t give to have a hidden camera in that kitchen right now.
I settle in behind the wheel of my car, start the engine, and click on my seat belt.
Bloop-dee-dee-bloop-bloop-bing!
I pull out my phone, grinning when I see that Tristan has responded to my last message.
Tristan: Is this Ellie?
I laugh aloud and press Shuffle on my “Wowza! Yowza!” playlist. “Good Golly Miss Molly” comes on and I crank up the volume.
No, Tristan, I think as I back out of the garage. This is most certainly not Ellie.
Get Back to Where You Once Belonged
8:01 a.m.
“Wow, it’s really chucking it down out—” Owen stops midsentence and stares into the car, dumbfounded.
“Yes?” I ask, pouting with my red-stained lips.
He doesn’t get in. Instead he closes the door, locking himself outside in the rain.
“Owen!” I call to the closed door. “What are you doing?”
I watch through the sporadic swoosh of the windshield wipers as Owen walks around the front of the car, bending down to examine something on the bumper. Then he gets back in, spraying water onto the dash with a flick of his hair.
“Well, it’s definitely her license plate,” he murmurs to himself.
“What was that about?”
“But it’s certainly not her driving the car.”
I roll my eyes. “Owen.”
He twists his mouth in concentration as he peers around the interior of my car. “That doesn’t leave a lot of credible explanations, apart from the obvious one.”
“Owen.”
“The aliens have finally made contact. They’ve taken Ellie to their home planet for a series of very invasive, yet admittedly sexy, experiments and left a robot decoy in her place.”
I sigh. “Ha ha. I get it. I don’t look like myself.”
He continues to ignore me, working out his theory like a detective in a film noir. “It was a very advanced humanlike model, of course, as the alien race was clearly light-years ahead of Earth in the technology race. But the decoy evidently wasn’t given any instructions on the proper attire or mannerisms of the human it was replacing. So it simply Googled the word ‘teenager’ and came up with this”—he gestures to my outfit—“staggeringly unrealistic representation of the modern adolescent.”
I groan and back out of the driveway.
“Or maybe—” Owen says with a stroke of inspiration.
“Owen.”
“Yes, Ellie impersonator?”
“If I tell you something, do you promise not to think I’m crazy?”
“I would never make a promise so impossible to keep.”
I turn left out of the subdivision and onto Providence Boulevard. “Something kind of strange has been happening to me.”
“Clearly.”
“I didn’t tell you about it yesterday but I told you the