01 Untouchable - Untouchable by Lindsay Delagair Read Free Book Online

face spread into a wide grin. “I
have bad news for you.”
    My heart skipped a beat, yet I was
puzzled by the smile.
    “ I’m not the FOTM
anymore.”
    It took a second for it to click in my
head. “A new guy?”
    “ Yeah, he climbed out of
that ‘78 Trans Am Firebird. She totally lost it. It was like she
didn’t even hear me.”
    I started laughing as I told him she
had done the same thing when he appeared a few days ago. “She
almost ripped my arm out of the socket,” I said, faking a still
sore shoulder.
    “ Me too,” he chuckled,
rubbing his arm.
    I made a point to stay out of arms
reach. Not that I wanted to, but I knew I had to.
    I walked into English class and found,
to my surprise, a new guy standing at Mr. Shultz’s desk. Well, I
could certainly see what set Jewels off, besides his cool car. This
guy must have been at least 6’3” with a thin but muscled build. His
hair was jet-black, which left me wondering if it could possibly be
dyed because I’d never seen hair truly that black. He was wearing
an equally black tee-shirt and blue jeans. His left arm had a
barb-wire tattoo around his bicep, a smaller tattoo at his wrist
and, as far as I could see, his right arm had a large colorful
tattoo. My first thought was that when he turned around he would
have piercings all over his face, but to my shock when he turned
around all he had was a diamond stud in one ear and the most
electrifying blue eyes on the planet. Once again, I figured they
couldn’t be natural, they had to be contacts, but they were
gorgeous. I was expecting to see a leather jacket slung over one
arm, because he had this whole tough-guy, James Dean thing going
on.
    He looked right at me and flashed an
impressive white smile. I blushed and looked away trying to
remember that it isn’t polite to stare.
    Kevin gave a little groan beside me,
“Not you too,” he whispered.
    I wondered what he meant until I looked
over at Carlie. She was all googly-eyed and flushed with color as
she stared at the new guy. Poor, Kev.
    The new guy walked to the seat behind
me and slid in quietly.
    “ Hi,” he said leaning
forward, “I’m Ryan.”
    I turned and noticed he had offered his
hand. I took it awkwardly and smiled, “Annalisa,” I tried to say it
quietly enough not to cause Mr. Schultz to look our way. I turned
back around and grabbed my book, hoping to lose myself in a little
Poe.
    “ All right,” Mr. Schultz
began, “We left off yesterday with Annalisa’s beautiful reading
of The Raven …”
    I slid down slightly in my
seat.
    “ Today we are going to break
into groups of two or three. I want you to discuss symbolism in the
poem. Don’t be afraid to be daring. I need at least five paragraphs
by the end of class.”
    I looked to Kevin and he had already
grabbed Carlie and, even though she was looking toward Ryan, she
settled in beside Kevin. Before I could say, “I’ll work with you
two,” I felt a tap on my shoulder.
    “ So Annalisa, you do
a beautiful reading of Poe?” He was looking up at me through some wisps of
black hair that had fallen forward.
    I rolled my eyes and shrugged, “I was
in a strange mood yesterday; strange works for Poe.”
    He swept the hair back with his hand
and gave a little grin, “Really? How’s the mood this morning? If
it’s still strange, you could give me a reading before we
start.”
    “ No,” I refused a little too
quickly. “Maybe I’m a little depressed, but nothing strange today.”
All I could think was that there was no way I was going to read
poetry to this guy, especially not with everyone listening to a
personal performance.
    “ I think Poe wrote most of
his best works while depressed. Are you sure you don’t want to
read?”
    “ Symbolism,” I stated,
ignoring his question. “What did the raven symbolize?”
    “ So why are you depressed?
Did you break up with your boyfriend?”
    “ Evan’s not my boyfriend,” I
retorted.
    “ Who’s Evan?”
    “ Ah! That is none of