Breaking Point by Flinn Alex

Author:Flinn, Alex [Flinn, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2012-03-18T14:29:07+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Charlie was my best friend now. And he had all sorts of other friends too. Maybe they wouldn’t have accepted me, but with Charlie, they had to. I was always with Charlie. I followed him, went where he went. I finally belonged.

The day after Charlie told me the story about his dad, he pulled me aside in the hall. “What I told you yesterday?”

“Yeah?”

“I never told anyone that. Not Meat or St. John. No one.” He flicked a hair from above his eyebrow. “Understand?”

I promised to tell no one. But secretly, I felt like one of the Chosen.

A few days later, Amanda cornered me at Mickey D’s.

It was one of those days when everyone from Gate and everyone from Palmetto High had converged on Mickey D’s. So, I was assigned to hold a table while Charlie, Meat, and St. John, braving the glares of the Palmetto students, ordered lunch. I was cleaning dried ketchup off the Formica with my jacket sleeve when suddenly, she was there.

“This seat taken?”

I stopped cleaning, let my arm fall to my lap, and glanced around, over her head. Did she mean some other seat, some other guy? Probably just wanted to wait for St. John. It was a booth for four. I looked at Charlie. Across the restaurant, he mouthed something. I think it was, Go for it, stupid. He grinned. Amanda was looking down at where my arm had disappeared under the table. I jerked it up, so she wouldn’t think I was playing with myself or something.

She slid her tray, slid her body against mine. Too close. No, no such thing. “Okay?”

“Sure. I mean, no.” Our thighs touched—an accident. She couldn’t possibly have meant it. “I mean, sit down.” Though, obviously, she already had.

She laughed. “You’re pretty funny.”

“Thanks.” Trying to think of something to say. Ask her about her computer-science work, maybe. I’d never helped her with that. No, too geeky. She was probably just being nice. Finally, I blurted, “I liked what you read that day in Bundy’s class. About how hard it was making friends here.”

She looked away. “Oh.”

“Sorry.” Now she knew I’d been watching her all semester.

“No, I … I never told anyone that before. My friends all ragged on me about it.”

“They shouldn’t have. I knew how you felt.”

“But you’re different.” She looked down, touching but not eating her fries.

“Different?”

“In a good way. Better than them, someone I could really talk to.” She looked up then, meeting my eyes. “It’s so hard, trying to do what people expect of you.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I leaned close to her.

“Way to hold a table, Richmond.” St. John’s voice boomed above everything, even my heartbeat. He threw a bag at me—my lunch. Had he gotten it to go on purpose? The others had trays. Still, I took it.

“Oh, sorry.” Amanda moved away. “Paul said it wasn’t taken.” She started to pull a chair from the next table.

“It isn’t,” I started to say. But St. John’s voice stepped on mine.

“I saw your friends over there, Amanda,” he said.

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