Timeless by Rachel Spangler

Author:Rachel Spangler [Spangler, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781626390959
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Published: 2014-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

*

Word of my morning antics must have made their way around the school quickly, because by the time I got to keyboarding class, several people stared and whispered. So much for laying low. I’d drawn more attention to myself in the last few days than I had in my entire four years of high school the first time around, and when I flipped on my computer screen I remembered why. The words Jesus-hating dyke splashed across my Word document.

Kelsey sat down at her workstation with little more than a glance at my screen. “You had to see that coming.”

I shrugged. “I suppose. It could’ve been worse.”

“It’ll get worse,” she said, with about as much emotion as one would give when asked for the time of day. “Hope it was worth it.”

“Me too.” I set to work on knocking out the day’s assignment in ten minutes, then e-mailed my work to Kelsey so she could copy and paste it into her document.

“I’m trying to learn here,” she whispered.

“I know, but I want to talk about Jody.”

“Then write that in the e-mail instead of cheating.”

I rolled my eyes. Mr. Glass never even looked at our assignments. He just asked if we did the work, then put a check in his grade book. Besides, did copying and pasting a page about my dear Aunt Sally’s trip to the grocery store count as cheating? Probably.

Why did Kelsey have to be so damn good? Aside from her quirks and her weird views on the intersection of science and fiction, she should have been seen as one of Darlington’s best students. She was obviously brilliant and thoughtful and diligent, and she didn’t want to make trouble for anyone. Why was she an outcast when goons like Michael Redly were considered Darlington’s finest?

Because she didn’t look the part?

Because she couldn’t throw a football?

Sometimes life sucked.

“Hey, wanna go out to lunch with me and Nikki?” I asked.

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

“I have to eat in the cafeteria.”

“Are you banned from open campus?”

“Kind of,” she whispered, sounding embarrassed.

“Why? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything, I just…” She lowered her voice even further. “I’m on the free-lunch program.”

I recognized the code name for the high-school equivalent of food stamps. “No big deal.”

“It is a big deal.” She let her dark hair fall over her eyes like a child who believed if she couldn’t see someone they couldn’t see her. “So don’t tell anyone.”

“I’d never do that, but it’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know. We haven’t always been like this,” she said so quietly I barely heard her. “My parents’ store got burned down in St. Louis. They spent what little insurance money we got to move here. They wanted me to live some place safer, but it’s taken longer than expected to get the new store off the ground.”

My heart broke for her and her parents. They just wanted a better life for their kid, and they were sinking everything they had into it. Wasn’t that the American way?

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