Escaping Perfect by Emma Harrison Page A

something out of me.”
    Which was true. I wasn’t usually quick with the one-­liners, but somehow that was different around Jasper.
    â€œSomething nasty, I guess,” he said, but he was still grinning. He swung his guitar behind him so he could hook his thumbs into his front pockets.
    I smirked back, my pulse thrumming in my wrists. “I guess.”
    I signaled for the bartender, but he was too busy with the hundred other people he was serving.
    â€œYou ain’t never gonna get his attention,” Jasper said.
    â€œYou do know that’s not proper English, right?” I said, then blushed. Jasper looked me up and down, his eyes narrowed.
    â€œHow about you and me head over to this place I know that’s not so packed?” he said. “I’d like to know everything about you, Red Sox.”
    He almost had me what with all the music and the smiling and the hotness, but that last notion stopped my blood cold. He couldn’t know everything about me. Not until I figured out who Lia Washington was. And clearly, as evidenced by my coughing fit back at the table, I didn’t even know where Lia Washington was from. And even when I figured out a backstory for myself, everything I said to him—to anyone—would be a lie.
    â€œI’ll pass,” I said, swallowing down my disappointment. My stomach was tied in knots, tightened by uncertainty. I knew that walking away from my old life meant leaving my identity behind, but I’d never really thought about what it would be like to create a fictitious one—to have to lie every moment of every hour of every day.
    â€œYou’re kidding,” he replied.
    â€œHey, bartender!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Itfelt good to shout. Miracle of miracles, he looked over. “Two beers in the bottle and an ice water.”
    I pulled out some cash and looked at Jasper, trying to collect myself. I didn’t want him to see how rattled I was. “People don’t say no to you very often, do they?”
    He leaned in to the bar on one elbow. “What is this ‘no’ word of which you speak?”
    I smiled, and the bartender dropped two sweating bottles of beer and a glass of water in front of me.
    â€œThat’ll be fifteen,” he said.
    I tossed him the money—plus tip—and picked up the drinks.
    â€œI liked your song,” I said to Jasper, turning away.
    â€œWell. That’s something to build on,” he replied.
    â€œWe’ll see.”
    As I sauntered away, I felt giddy and high, but it didn’t last. Halfway across the room, my guilt, my doubt, and my fear had snuffed it out. All I’d wanted was a new life. My life. But how could I ever really have that when I was always second-guessing what to say? When I couldn’t let anyone get near me for fear I’d slip up? When I didn’t even know who the hell I was supposed to be?
    What if I’d made a huge, horrible, irreversible mistake?

Chapter Five
    The hazy, early morning light was coming from the wrong side of the bed, and when I stretched out my legs, my toes caught on something hard. I sat up and blinked, pushing my hair back from my face. Except there was no hair to push. That was when it all came rushing back to me. I opened my eyes and winced against the sunlight. East-facing windows with no curtains. Awesome.
    Then I looked around the bare room and smiled. There was a three-drawer dresser with a missing handle and a water-ringed top. The small green table next to the bed was round and metal and slightly rusted, as if it had once been used as outdoor furniture. The door to the closet was an old shower curtain with a painting of Johnny Cash midcroon, and the bed beneath me was bare—it was the hard, rollededge of the mattress that my foot had hit when I woke up. I had slept under an old Mickey Mouse blanket of Britta’s that had covered all of me only if I curled up in a ball. Over my head a ceiling