All Unquiet Things by Anna Jarzab Read Free Book Online Page B

three-hour parent-teacher conference last June and I am perfectly aware that my GPA is on eagle-eyed watch. Now that I’ve boiled this scolding down to its essential elements, am I free to go?” I knew I was just asking for trouble, talking to Finch like that, but my relationship with His Majesty, King of Brighton, was unusual. My stint as his program mentee had forged a more casual, almost familial bond between us, one that I had simultaneously resented and exploited since leaving the program.
    Finch looked up, not amused. “Sit down, Neily.”
    I flopped down in a chair. “So I can assume that something other than my ‘disappointing academic performance’ last year earned me a yellow slip this morning?”
    “I found out about your little episode last weekend,” Finch told me, scrawling his name on a piece of paper and putting it aside.
    “From who?”
    “Your father.”
    “Figures.” I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
    “He’s very worried about you and thought that I, as your mentor, should know about it.”
    “Jesus, you’re not my mentor, Finch. It was nothing. A blip. I wasn’t getting any sleep and I just fell off the grid for, like, a day. But I’m back, and I’m fine, and I even completed all of my summer assignments, so unless you called me in here to give me a gold star and a pat on the back for finally listening to you, I’d like to return to class now. I’m missing vectors.”
    “I should think that your mental health would be more of a priority to you under the circumstances, Neily. Aren’t you sick of parading around like what happened doesn’t bother you?”
    “I’m fine. That’s what I told Harriet, and I’m not going to change my story and sob my heart out on your shoulder just because you put your ‘I care’ face on all special for me this morning.”
    “You need to let people help you,” Finch said, struggling to sound sympathetic. “You need to really talk to someone instead of using humor and sarcasm as a defense. If you keep holding on to everything that happened, you’re never going to move forward the way you need to.”
    “For Christ’s sake, close the textbook and open your ears. I’m. Fine .” I leaned forward and said it slowly. He stared at me without blinking. “I’m just tired of everybody treating me like I’m some kind of mental patient. I don’t owe you an explanation, and I don’t need your sympathy or your support. If anybody needs to move forward and stop holding on, it’s you.” I got up and headed for the door.
    “I’m just looking out for your best interest.”
    “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”

    Eighth Grade–Fall Semester
    C arly and I spent long hours in the library, at a little table in the back near the stacks that Carly called the Nest. Our supervisors—teachers who had offered to oversee our progress in various subjects—would drop by for fifteen minutes each sometime during the day, to give us new assignments, hand back old ones, and gather up our completed exercises. Finch himself paid us several visits a day, mainly to make sure we weren’t goofing off, and Gert, the librarian, was supposed to keep an eye on us the rest of the time. We took gym and music appreciation with the other students in our grade, but mostly we just sat in the back and practiced looking bored. God, were we insufferable then—no wonder everybody avoided us.
    We worked hard. There was more pressure than either of us really understood, but we could feel it bearing down on us all the same, pushing up against our backs. Every once in a while, Carly would stand over me, resting her chin on my shoulder while she read what I had written; sometimes, she would hand me something, or take something from me, and her fingers would comb my palm; once, she got up to go to the bathroom and rumpled my hair as she passed, just to rile me; in these moments, the pressure would lift.
    It had only been a few months since we met, but it felt as though we’d