Out of Place by Jennifer Blecher

Author:Jennifer Blecher
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

I take the number six bus straight from school to Sal’s. After-school activities are usually two hours, so I figure Jonah and I can watch at least two more episodes of Create You before Mom starts to worry. I should start my homework on the bus. Instead, I look out the window. What Sophie said to me about the petition—the petition that I signed—bounces around my head like a trapped rubber ball. By the time I get to Sal’s, it feels like the rubber ball will be stuck inside my head forever.

“Why so glum, chum?” asks Jonah. He turns the page down on another thick book and slides a pen behind his ear. Jonah doesn’t usually talk like that, all rhyme-y. But it doesn’t take a genius to tell something’s wrong.

“No reason,” I say.

“Um, so not buying that,” he says. “I’m thinking it’s something really bad because you kinda look like this ratty old T-shirt. No offense.”

Jonah holds up a faded blue T-shirt from a pile on the counter. It’s full of tiny holes. The fabric is so thin that the light from the front window shines right through. It looks kind of beautiful, like a kaleidoscope Nina used to have, the kind that makes light seem like it’s playing a game of tag. But that’s not what Jonah means. He doesn’t mean I look beautiful. He means I look pathetic. Sad. Worthless. The rubber ball in my head starts bouncing faster.

“Why does everyone think that if you just say ‘no offense’ it makes everything okay?” I ask. “Like, ‘Cove, you’re a total loser with no friends. No offense.’”

“Whoa there, partner,” says Jonah, raising his hands in defense. “Rein it in.”

But I don’t want to stop.

“And why does everyone think they can say those kinds of things at all? Why do people think they can do stuff, like bark at you in the hallway or say they’re fighting for your rights, when really they’re just insulting you to your face? It’s not like I go around asking you why you moved here and why you spend all day alone in a store underlining sentences in books and watching shows on your laptop. It’s not like I say, ‘Hey Jonah, why don’t you try making some friends your own age? No offense.’”

The words come fast, before I can think them through. But even if I had thought them through, I still would have said them. Because I needed to know if they would make me feel better. I needed to know if being mean to someone else, someone you actually like, helps make everything else go away.

Turns out, it doesn’t. Because I feel worse. Way worse.

“Are you done?” Jonah asks.

I nod.

“Well, that’s a relief. Because that kind of stunk. No offense.”

“Sorry,” I say. Even though I feel badly, I smile. I can tell by Jonah’s tone of voice, by the way he flicks his head so that the spikes in his hair lean to the side, that he’s not really truly mad.

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