Fly on the Wall: How One Girl Saw Everything by E. Lockhart Read Free Book Online Page A

it,” she admits. “But I still don't think it means anything. He was male dominating. Or maybe flirting.”
    “But why is he flirting with me?”
    “It's not the kind of flirting you want, anyway. Someone grabbing you from behind when he thinks he can cop a feel.”
    “Do you think he wants to be friends again?”
    “No.”
    “Then is he manipulating me?”
    “You think about it too much.”
    “How can there be flirting that doesn't mean anything?” I push.
    “There just is.” We're outside the school now, heading toward the subway. Katya lights a cigarette.
    “Like you and Malachy?” I ask, feeling annoyed about the smoke and the no weekend plans.
    “I wasn't flirting with Malachy.”
    I know I'm being a pain—but I can't help it.
    My dad is a cheating, disappearing jerk
    and I love him like crazy;
    Shane is a cold-fish-sometimes-flirty ex, and I can barely talk when he's in the room;
    Titus is a sensitive guy one minute and sidekick to booty master Adrian the next.
    If I can't figure out how to deal with the opposite sex, I'm going to lose my mind.
    “Guys suck,” I say to Katya. “Then they grow up to be men, and the men suck too.”
    “So forget them.”
    “Ha. That's like Spider-Man forgetting he's got Venom following him up a building.”
    Silence.
    “Know what I wish?” I say. We are standing outside the subway now, before getting on our different trains.
    “Hm.” She seems distracted. “That you had a life?”
    “Katya!”
    “Okay. That Titus liked you.”
    “Besides that. Guess.”
    “Money? Beauty?”
    “Besides those.”
    “Peace?”
    “Besides that.”
    “Just tell me,” sighs Katya. “What do you wish?”
    “I wish I was a fly on the wall of the boys' locker room,” I say.

i go home. The apartment is empty.
    I watch TV. I read Kaf ka.
    I order dumplings in hot oil and tofu with black bean sauce and eat as I flip through yesterday's newspaper.
    I go to sleep.

part two
life as a vermin

S aturday morning, when I wake up, I am not in my bed.
    I am not in my body, either.
    I am standing, already, though I don't remember getting up, and I'm somewhere sunny.
    It seems odd that I'm up before I'm awake, and odd that it's so bright in here, since I normally sleep with the shades down— but I only realize something is radically different when I stretch my arms,
    and then my legs
    and then my other legs.
    Stupid hell, where are these legs coming from?
    What, legs, what?
    Where did I get extra legs?
    They itch. I'll rub them together.
    I must be dreaming still.
    I wonder if the hot oil from last night is giving me weird dreams. I don't usually eat so much hot oil.
    I'll probably wake all the way up in a minute, and stare at my messy room like usual, and pour a bowl of cereal and watch cartoons on TV and think about going running but not go, and try and call Katya and tell her what a strange dream I had.
    Extra legs. I'm sure she'll have some Freudian analysis of the dream too. Like I have gherkin envy or something like that. Or I want to run away from something. Or stand up for something.
    Whatever. I feel like stretching something else.
    Hmm, ahh
,
    what is it I want to stretch?
    Ah, yes, my wings
,
    my wings!
    My WINGS.
    I stretch them and it feels unbelievably great, these big, powerful, paper-thin wings coming from my shoulders. I have an incredible urge to flap them up and down rapidly. It's almost like they want to move on their own.
    But I can't do that. I can't start flapping. It's too freakin' scary. Because this doesn't feel like a dream at all.
    It feels absolutely realer than real. Realer than my regular life, even.
    I open my eyes. Well, not exactly open them, because I don't have eyelids. It's more like turning them on, so I'm conscious not just of warm bright sunlight, but of the world around me. When I do, images are coming from everywhere, not only in front of me. I can see above, below, to the right, left and back of me—a full surround. But my brain has somehow