Influenced Eva Robinson (polar express read aloud .TXT) 📖

in a fancy hotel, with the sonata playing in the background. Maybe he was waiting for his glamorous lover right now.

His Instagram photos were the usual—the mint he was growing, a picture of his cat, the sunset over the Charles River. No gorgeous, flat-stomached girlfriend.

She scrolled through her feed, letting her mind go blank. This was what she did to relax—looking at photos of the wide world outside her tiny apartment. Places she’d visit if she ever had the money and the freedom.

There were the photos of Norwegian fjords in the sun, and English gardens streaming with sunlight. German botanical gardens. Leafy tables in Palestine set with bowls of berries and wildflowers. Golden buildings in Oxford.

She particularly liked the photos of people reading in the sun in gardens or library nooks. She’d started her own Instagram book blog, and she hoped to put it to use when she finally wrote her book. She posted entirely wholesome images: cups of hot chocolate with marshmallows, croissants next to an open book, wildflowers growing along a riverbank with a pile of novels.

As she scrolled, a photo popped up of Rowan Harris, her former high school friend who’d become an early Instagram star. Hannah loved Rowan’s photos—and hated them in equal measure. She loved them because they were pure escapism. Rowan took sexy selfies in the most elegant backgrounds in Europe: strolling through Parisian gardens or past medieval buildings in Edinburgh, sailing in Boston Harbor in a striped sailor shirt. She lounged in windowsills in nothing but perfectly rumpled shirts, like she’d just woken up at a boyfriend’s apartment and he’d brought her coffee. She strode across the Harvard campus while male students turned their heads to gape at her shapely legs. She had a signature look: dark brown curly bob, full red lips, eyeliner swooping like Sophia Loren.

In the newest picture, Rowan glowed, her high cheekbones sparkling. Ruddy light sparked in her eyes, and she held up a champagne flute that glittered like pale honey. Blurry dots of light dappled vines in the background. It looked like the most perfect garden party in the world.

It seemed Rowan was celebrating the completion of her second book.

And there it was—the thing that marked them as members of the same elite tribe: the delicate gold fleur-de-lis bracelet. An ache grew in Hannah’s chest. This was the life she wanted.

And that was why she dreaded Rowan’s photos as much as she loved them.

With over a million followers, Rowan could net thousands of dollars for each sponsored ad. And it wasn’t even like Rowan needed any of that money. Her father was a real estate developer—a multimillionaire.

For just a moment, another flare of jealousy seared Hannah, so hot she could almost hear it hissing like water on coals.

She clicked on one of Rowan’s photos—a promotional one where she wore sheer red lipstick.

Beautiful as her new posts were, the really stunning ones were the older ones—the old, sun-soaked photos from her days at Harvard, lying out on the grass in a cute dress. The whimsical photo of her blowing on a dandelion puff. There were always one or two chisel-jawed, preppy guys in the background.

It had been Rowan’s year abroad in Paris that had kicked off her career big-time. She’d found herself a glamorous boyfriend—a famous literary writer named Marc. What followed was a series of sleek photos: at the tables of Parisian cafés, balconies with the Eiffel Tower in the background, Rowan draped in a lacy gown with the rising sun behind her.

As Hannah pored over the older photos, it struck her what she loved the most about them. The older ones had the most magic, a sense of the unexpected. In one, Rowan stood before a medieval sundial painted on a sandstone wall. In another, she was in front of a wooden door carved with the head of Medusa, the setting sun, bathing the whole scene in peach.

The photos were full of possibility—something Hannah desperately needed. Rowan could go anywhere, could meet anyone.

The new ones seemed slightly… unhappier. A newer caption read, Forgetting the haters for today. Indulging in chocolate spread on my toast on the balcony.

Why would Rowan think about the “haters” at all? She was rich and beautiful; she couldn’t possibly care what they thought. What was that expression—wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep?

People seemed to find plenty to criticize about Rowan, but the fact was that they were all watching, enraptured. Rowan was never boring.

“I want to be a freaking wolf,” said Hannah out loud.

It may have been the photos with Arabella that made Hannah feel the most inadequate. Arabella—the beautiful Harvard PhD candidate—who appeared next to Rowan, flaxen-haired and sexy, smart and gorgeous, with a certain fragility to her. The photos of her conveyed glamour and sadness all at once. She was like a Keats poem come to life.

With a knot in her chest, Hannah turned her phone off. She bit her lip, wondering if she had what it took to become a wolf. What if she could build up her Instagram following—what if she could get a book deal?

On the one hand, she knew that if it were easy, everyone would do it. On the other, she couldn’t get the thought out of her mind.

What did it take to get a hundred thousand Instagram followers? Being promoted by Rowan would be a start. Imagine making rent money from just one single picture.

Of course, of course it wasn’t that easy.

And yet…

They hadn’t been in touch since high school. She remembered it very clearly, the last night they’d spoken. December, during the winter formal. Rowan had been drunk.

The worst night of Hannah’s life, in fact—one that made her want to throw up the omelet.

Hannah’s muscles tensed, and she pushed the memory out of her mind.

Rising, she grabbed her plate off the table and dropped it in the sink. Then she hurried to the bathroom and started rummaging through her drawers until she found her old makeup bag.

As she drew the swoops