If I Tell by Janet Gurtler

Author:Janet Gurtler [Gurtler, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: english eBooks
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2011-10-13T22:00:00+00:00

chapter ten

At least school was a place that offered solitude. No mom weeping about her size or discomfort. No grandma telling me to get out of my room, off my guitar, and out in the fresh air. And with my grades still hanging in there, teachers left me alone. When my schedule didn’t jibe with Ashley’s, my favorite place between classes was outside. Alone in the unseasonable warmth with my guitar, I closed my eyes and faintly hummed the lyrics of my latest song.

Betray me. Betray you. I will if I must.

“What’s that?” a voice asked.

My body jerked, and my eyes flew open as a gasp escaped my mouth.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Is it okay if I sit here?” Jackson said nonchalantly, as if he came and sat with me at school every day. Which he didn’t. Ours was mostly a coffee-shop thing.

“It’s a free country.” I sat up, not wanting him to see that his proximity made my nerves jump around like toddlers overdosing on sugar.

“Yeah, I hear it is,” he said as he plunked down on the grass beside me. He switched his iPod off, pulling earbuds from his ears and letting the wires dangle in front of his shirt.

“So you realize you’re sitting outside the school all by yourself, strumming and humming?” he asked in a conversational tone.

“I do indeed.” I crunched my legs and hugged myself tighter.

“Perhaps this is one of the reasons you’re considered a freak by some of our esteemed classmates.” He winked to take the edge off.

“Perhaps.” Resting my chin on the top of my knobby knees, I studied him. “But an advantage of people thinking I’m a freak is freedom to act like one. No one thinks anything of it.”

“I see your point. Unexpected privileges. So. What song were you playing?”

“It’s just a song.”

“I don’t recognize it.”

“I guess not.” I held my breath a little as if I was about to tell him I wasn’t wearing underwear or something. “I wrote it.”

“You wrote it?”

I nodded, waiting for his reaction and realizing it mattered.

“Cool.” He grinned at me like I’d done something amazingly clever. A better reaction than I’d hoped for.

“You crack me up, you know,” he said. “Putting yourself out there with some things and trying to just blend into the scenery and not be noticed with others.”

“What makes you think you know so much about me?”

“I’m good at figuring people out. It’s a gift.”

“That right?” I asked.

“I know you work in a coffee shop but hate drinking coffee. I know that you’re obsessed with Neil Diamond, and I know you’re kind of a lone wolf. But how come I didn’t know that you wrote a song?” He leaned back, his hands pressing into the grass, and watched me.

“Songs,” I admitted. “I’ve been writing songs for years.”

He pushed off the grass and wiped his hands back and forth on each other. “Plural. You’re prolific. I guess I should have known.”

My insides smiled at his easy teasing. He was so much easier to talk to now.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.