Between the Notes by Sharon Huss Roat Read Free Book Online

gawked.
    My face burned for the second time that day, and it was barely seven o’clock. “It happens to be a classic Schwinn. People pay a lot of money for vintage bicycles like that, you know.”
    He chuckled. “Looks more like something you found, oh, I don’t know . . . lying in the trash by the side of the road?”
    “It wasn’t in the trash, it was . . .” I snapped my mouth shut. “Why am I even talking to you?”
    “Just being neighborly?”
    I ran up the stairs, hoping to distance myself from him before we reached the entrance. But he took the steps two at a time and lunged to open one of the double glass doors for me.
    “Thank you,” I muttered.
    “You’re very welcome.” There were two sets of doors, and he leaped ahead of me to get the second one as well. I told myself he’d go away then. He’d go his way and I’d go mine, and . . .
    “So, how’s life in Turd Tower so far?”
    “In WHAT?” I immediately regretted the volume of my reply as another dozen people registered me talking to Lazarski. I imagined tiny little cameras snap, snap, snapping away, like paparazzi. “What are you talking about?” I asked, trying to speak without moving my lips.
    “Your house,” he said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed it kinda looks like a giant turd. A very tall one.”
    My mouth dropped open, but I was too stunned to cough up aclever retort. He was absolutely right. My new brown-on-brown-on-brown home looked like shit. And I was living in it.
    Having it rubbed in my face by Lennie Lazarski was more than I could bear. My eyes started to burn with hot tears. I spun around to escape him and marched down the hall toward my locker.
    Where Willow and Wynn were waiting for me.

SIX
    “I -vy!” Willow waved to make sure I’d seen her, in case I missed her shouting my name with her megaphone voice. Wynn greeted me with a more delicate wiggle of her fingers, lashes fluttering. I knew better than to be fooled by their sweetness.
    “Hey.” I continued walking, hoping they’d go back to their usual favorite pastime of admiring themselves. But the clomp of their heels followed in my wake. When I reached my locker, they pulled up on either side of me, like tennis players preparing to volley.
    “New boyfriend?” Willow nodded toward the entrance.
    “Huh?” My eyelid twitched.
    “We saw you talking to Loser Lazarski,” said Wynn.
    I pressed the knuckles of my right hand to my twitching eye. “He’s not . . . I wasn’t talking to him. He opened the door for me and I said thank you. It’s called being polite. You should try it sometime.”
    “To him?” Willow gave a fake shudder. “No thanks.”
    Wynn reached over and plucked something out of my hair. A leaf. “Nice. Were you rolling around in the grass with him or something?”
    I grabbed the leaf from her hand and let it fall in crumbled bits to the floor. “No! I barely spoke to him.”
    “We’re kidding,” Willow said in a monotone. “God, lighten up.”
    I wasn’t sure that was possible, what with the quicksand of my life swallowing me whole.
    “Where were you this weekend?” Willow twisted a stray hair around the dancer bun she always wore. “You didn’t return our texts.”
    Wynn made puppy-dog eyes. “Are you mad at us or something?”
    “No, I . . . uh . . . lost my phone.”
    “That sucks,” said Willow. “When are you getting a new one?”
    I shrugged. “I’m thinking maybe I don’t really need a phone—”
    “Right.” She laughed, then realized I might actually be serious. “Tell me you’re kidding.”
    For a few seconds, an alternate conversation went through my head in which I confessed the truth of my situation, that my family was broke and living in Lakeside, next door to a drug dealer. But the look of disgust on Willow’s face at the mention of no cell phone was so horrible, I just wanted to make it go away. I broke into a smile. “Of course, I’m kidding. My dad’s ordering a new one through his work.