Pushing Perfect
Kara Winters is always striving for perfection. But when her anxiety takes over, the price of perfection spirals out of control…'Perfect' Kara Winters has always hated her nickname. Especially now that she no longer lives up to it. She used to have normal friends, she used to be normal. Now all she wants is to get into Harvard and leave high school behind.So when the pressure to ace her exams finally gets to her, Kara does one tiny bad thing, just to help out, to ease the stress. If it will help Kara get a perfect exam score and one step closer to a new life, it’s a price she’s willing to pay.But she never expects to get caught out. Or that Alex, Raj and her other not-so-perfect new friends might get embroiled in a horrible mess that could ruin all of their futures.Sometimes perfection isn't what it's cracked up to be.
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First published in the USA by HarperTeen, a division of HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2017
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd,
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Copyright © Spilled Ink Productions, 2016
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Cover illustration © Anneka Sandher
Michelle Falkoff asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008110697
Ebook Edition © 2016 ISBN: 9780008110710
Version: 2016-11-16
FOR MY PARENTS
Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Acknowledgments
Books by Michelle Falkoff
About the Publisher
During the summer between eighth and ninth grade, I turned into a monster.
It didn’t happen overnight; it’s not like I woke up one day, looked in the mirror, and let out a dramatic scream. But it still felt like it happened really fast.
It started at the pool with my two best friends, Becca Walker and Isabel DeLuca. School had just let out for the summer, and though the weather still felt like spring, the sun was out and the pool was heated and Isabel had a new bikini she wanted to show off. Normally she hated going to the pool with us, since Becca and I spent most of our time in the water swimming laps to practice for swim team tryouts, but Isabel had gotten all curvy and hot and kind of boy crazy, and there was a new lifeguard, so getting her to come with us wasn’t that hard.
We couldn’t get Isabel to actually swim, but that was okay; Becca and I spent most of the day racing. I usually won when we swam freestyle, but Becca always killed me in the butterfly. I was terrible at butterfly. We raced until we were exhausted, and then we got out of the water, dripping in our Speedos as we headed for the showers.
“Your butterfly’s getting better,” Becca said, stretching her long, muscular arms over her head. With her wingspan and power I’d never catch her in butterfly, but it was nice of her to say I was improving. Becca was always nice. Isabel was a different story.
“Thanks,” I said. “Not sure it will be good enough to make the team, though.”
“You never know. We don’t have to be perfect to get on. We just have to be good enough. And if you talk to your parents, we’ll be able to spend the whole summer practicing.”
The goal was for me to stay with the Walkers for the summer, instead of going on the family trip my mom was planning. Dad had just gotten forced out of his own start-up once it went public, and Mom thought he needed to get away while he figured out his next move. She’d rented a condo in Lake Tahoe for the whole summer, and I really, really didn’t want to go. I hadn’t brought up the idea of staying behind with the Walkers yet, though, since I was having trouble imagining my parents saying anything but no. “I’ll do it soon,” I said. “I’m just waiting for the right moment.”
We both rinsed quickly under the showers and then pulled off our swim caps. Something stung as I removed mine; I reached up to my forehead to feel a little bump there. I ran over to the mirror to look at it as Becca shook her braids out of the swim cap. “I’m going to miss these when they’re gone,” she said.
“Are you sure you can’t keep them?” The bump hurt a little, though all I could see was a spot of redness, not the protrusion I’d have thought based on how it felt. I took my hair out of its bun and brushed it over my face so Becca and Isabel couldn’t see the bump. They’d always teased me for having perfect skin, and I knew they’d find it amusing that I didn’t anymore.
