Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 103104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103104 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
With a cold expression on my face, one I’ve been practicing for a week, my eyes rove over the students, not lingering too long on faces.
That’s right, Ava Harris, the snitch/bitch who went to the police after the party, is back.
And I’m not going anywhere.
All I need is this final year, and I might be able to swing a full ride at a state school or even get a scholarship to Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt. My body quivers in yearning. Me at a prestigious university. Me going to class with people who don’t know me. Me having something that is mine. Me making my own road, and it’s shiny and flat and so damn smooth…
My legs work before my brain does, and as I start down the hall, the crowd parts, more students seeing me and pausing, eyes widening.
The air around me practically bristles with tension.
If I were a wicked witch, I’d cackle right now.
My fists clench, barely hanging on to my resolve.
You’re better than any of them.
But inside, my words of encouragement feel hollow.
Piper rushes up and throws her arms around me. “She’s back! My main girl is back! OMG, I HAVE MISSED YOU SO MUCH!”
Seeing her exuberant, welcoming face is exactly what I needed. Pretty with long strawberry blonde hair pulled back with two butterfly clips, she’s been my friend since we had a chorus class together freshman year. She can’t carry a tune, but I love to sing. I had a solo at every single concert at Camden BTN. Before That Night.
Piper is still talking, rambling about what I’ve been doing this summer. Working, I tell her, and she tells me how she went out to Yellowstone with her parents on an awful month-long road trip with her two younger brothers in an RV. I nod and smile in all the right places, and she seems to think I’m okay. Good.
She shoves at her neon pink cat-eye glasses and smiles as she squeezes my hand. “I’m so glad to see you. Also, my parents are insisting you come to dinner soon. It’s been a while.”
Indeed.
“Are you, you know, okay?” she says.
Before I can answer, someone jostles into us, moving away quickly, but not before I hear snitch from his lips.
My purse falls down with the force of his shoulder.
And so it begins.
Helping me get my bag, she turns her head and snaps at the retreating back of the person who bumped into me. “Watch it!” Then, “Jockass!”
Rising up, I crane my neck to see who it was. Red hair, football player: Brandon Wilkes. I barely know him.
She blows at the bangs in her face, schooling her features back into a sweet expression even though her eyes are darting around at everyone as if daring them to say one word against me. “Anyway, I’m glad you came back. We haven’t gotten to talk much, and that is your fault, which is fine. I gave you space like you asked.”
She never did pull punches.
I haven’t called her like I should have, but I needed distance from this place and everyone here. I tried in the beginning, but when she’d bring up school and the football games and her classes and everyday things about the day-to-day at Camden, I felt that pit of emptiness tugging at me, a dark hole of memories and people I didn’t want to think about. Her life went on—as it should have—while I was stuck wallowing in the past.
“But you’re here now.” She smiles, but there’s a wobbly quality to it.
“Yeah.” I give her a wan smile, putting as much effort into it as I can. Her parents were the ones who took me to the hospital last year. Nice people. Hardworking. Not rich. She’s a scholarship student like me and got into Camden because her math and science scores are insane. She lives here in Sugarwood while I commute from the group home. Before I turned sixteen, a nun brought me to school in an old yellow van.
She jumps when she hears her name over the intercom, talking fast as lightning. “Yikes! I need to run. My mom is here. Can you believe I forgot my laptop on the first day? I’m such a ditz! See you in class, ’kay? We have first period together, yes?” She gives me a quick hug. “You got this.”
But, do I?
Truly, I want to run and get back in my car and leave this place behind forever, but then I think about my little brother Tyler. Goals…must stick to them.
Before I can get a word out—typical—she’s gone and bouncing down the hall like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.
I miss her immediately, feeling the heat of everyone’s eyes on me.
It’s funny how no one really noticed me during my freshman and sophomore year here. Nope. I was the girl who kept her head down and blended in as well as I could, trying to keep my upbringing off the radar…until the summer before junior year when I ran into Chance at a bookstore and he showed interest. Then when school started, I got it in my head to be a cheerleader. Mostly, I told myself it would look good on my college applications, plus I assumed it would take less time than soccer or tennis—but the truth is I did it for him. I wanted Chance and Friday night football games and parties with the in crowd.