Cracked up to be by Courtney Summers

Author:Courtney Summers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312383695
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

twelve

Chris wants to talk.

In homeroom, he hisses my name, but I ignore him. In art, he tries to start a conversation and I ignore him. After the bell goes, he tells me to meet him in the gym and—ignored. He either knows about Jake or wants to talk about Evan and I don’t want to talk about either, so I have to find somewhere else to spend my lunch hour, somewhere that’s relatively peaceful and not totally crowded.

Like the chapel.

Why didn’t I think of it before? If I’d thought of it before, I never would’ve tried the nurse’s office or made a habit of “hiding out” in the gym. The chapel. It’s only a Catholic school. No one goes to the chapel.

But I’d forgotten just how awful and uncomfortable the place makes you feel until I push through the doors and step into the little God’s House adjacent to the caf. It’s like the walls know I’m a bad person. I stand before the altar, cross myself—force of habit—and try to pick the best pew of the lot, settling for one in the middle on the left-hand side. I could sleep away my afternoon classes and no one would ever think to look for me here.

“Parker?”

I groan.

“Oh my God. It’s true.”

“Go away,” I mutter. “I’m not talking to you.”

“You’re a mess.”

The thing about being drunk is people want to congratulate you for it, often in the form of giving you more to drink.

Or maybe this anomaly is only true of people in my high school.

Chris drags me out to the pool and for the next hour all anyone can talk about is how Perfect Parker Fadley is actually drunk, and then they slap me on the back and they say “way to go” all admiringly, and next thing I know, someone’s pressing a red plastic cup into my hand. And because I start feeling that rush I usually feel when I’ve done something perfectly and everyone knows it, I drink whatever is in the red plastic cup.

And then I get props and another red plastic cup.

Four or six red plastic cups later, I have:

Danced horrendously in front of everyone, even though Chris assures me I looked sexy and plenty of guys want to “tap” that, nearly fallen into the pool, told several people I loved them, apologized to most of the cheerleading squad for being a Nazi—except for Becky, fallen down and cried, was helped up and laughed, threw up, cried again, told Chris I hated him for doing this to me because I was being stupid and he promised me I wouldn’t and stumbled away to the front lawn, which is where I’m lying now, flat on my back with perfectly manicured blades of grass pressing into my legs, hands and neck.

Chris is probably searching for me all over the house and backyard where the party is, which is why I’m out front, where the party isn’t. The remaining minuscule sober part of my brain refuses to let me

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