Broken Hearts, Fences and Other Things to Mend by Katie Finn Read Free Book Online

uncoordinated. “Have you been to the Hamp-
    tons before?”
    “Well . . .” I started. I should have probably been prepared for
    this question, but it caught me off guard. “Um, once,” I said. “For
    a summer when I was a kid. But not since then.”
    “Same here,” he said again. “Not even for a whole summer, in
    my case. But I remember I liked it.”
    “Yeah,” I murmured as I looked out the window so that he
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    wouldn’t see my expression. Guilt was hitting me like a wave, and
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    I was wondering, again, if I’d made a mistake in agreeing to go
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    back. I had a sudden fl ash of a memory I usually tried to keep
    buried— me, staring through the car window at Hallie, her shoul-
    ders slumped, her face tearstained and puffy, all the while know-
    ing that it was my fault, that I’d done things I couldn’t take back.
    “So you’re from Connecticut?” he asked, shaking me out of
    this memory. “I, um,” he continued, looking down at his feet, and
    I saw the tips of his ears were turning red. “Noticed when you got
    on.”
    “Oh,” I said. Oh . I felt a fi zzy feeling in my stomach, some-
    thing I hadn’t felt in a very long time, not since Teddy and I fi rst
    started dating. But just as soon as it had started, it went away. I
    wasn’t interested in this guy. He wasn’t Teddy, and it was as
    simple as that. “Um, yeah. I’m from Putnam. Are you from Con-
    necticut too?”
    Josh shook his head. “I came from Massachusetts,” he said. “I
    go to school there. Clarence Hall.”
    I raised an eyebrow. Clarence Hall was a boarding school a
    few hours from Putnam. Sophie had once dated two guys there at
    the same time, and it had ended in a spectacularly bad fashion.
    I’d given Sophie endless grief about it, telling her that deception
    never led to anything but heartache, and she must have listened
    to me, because after that, she stuck to dating one guy at a time,
    even if they did sometimes overlap at the end— Sophie wasn’t the
    greatest at being on her own.
    “Impressive,” I said.
    “I don’t know about that,” Josh said with a laugh. “I’m mostly
    there because of the lacrosse team.”
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    “Extra impressive,” I said, before I could stop myself. But I
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    couldn’t help it— the cutest guys at Putnam High played lacrosse.
    Since Teddy had opposed pretty much all sports for various ethi-
    cal reasons— and I had too, in support of him— I’d never really
    known any lacrosse players well, just secretly admired them from
    afar.
    Josh laughed at that, and I realized I liked the sound of it— a
    generous laugh without any meanness in it. The conductor got
    on the scratchy PA system and announced the Bridgehampton
    stop— and I realized that was the one I was supposed to meet my
    dad at. “Sorry,” I said, getting to my feet very cautiously as the
    train slowed. “That’s my stop.” I reached for my bag from the over-
    head rack, but Josh was already leaning over me, lifting it up like
    it weighed nothing.
    “Mine too,” he said as he lifted up a red- and- black duffel with
    CLARENCE HALL printed on one side and swung one bag on each
    shoulder.
    “You don’t have to do that,” I said, as it became clear he was
    going to carry my bag for me.
    “Not a problem,” he said. But when he reached down for his
    own backpack, I grabbed it before he had the chance.
    “I’ve got this,” I said as swung it over my shoulder and picked
    up my purse. He nodded, and we made our way up the aisle, where
    I saw at least three women and one guy reading copies of Once
    Bitten . We reached the doors right as they opened, and stepped
    off the over- air- conditioned train and into the warm summer
    night.
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    As the train pulled away behind us, I noticed that it was