Fractured by Sarah Fine Read Free Book Online Page A

be together all day. And … maybe he was right. Sitting next to Malachi was a full-on distraction, and I wasn’t the only one who seemed to think so. But if everyone else was distracted, he was totally focused, his eyes on his work, his pen in constant motion, taking scrupulously neat notes.
    I watched him like a movie. The way he put his elbow on his desk and pressed his thumb between his eyebrows, propping his head up with his knuckles as he wrote. The way his eyes scanned the hall, not just on guard, I realized, but taking everything in. Every flyer, every person, the lockers and the trophy case—his gaze slid over all of it, tracing and memorizing, and the whole time, his lips were curved up into this tiny smile, easy to miss yet impossible not to stare at once you knew it was there. If I had been tossed into high school cold, I couldn’t have pulled it off. But Malachi looked like he’d won the lottery. It made me want to ask him about it, to hear what kind of future he hoped for now that he was here. And I wanted to be a part of it.
    At lunch, we loaded our trays and threaded our way toward an empty table in the corner. As we were walking, Tegan waved us over to hers, where she sat with Aden and a bunch of her friends.
    Malachi nudged me with his shoulder. “They want you to sit with them very badly.”
    I laughed. “I think it might be you they want to sit with.”
    His brows lowered in confusion. “Me?”
    “You really don’t know how you look to people, do you?” Tegan and Laney Fisher were staring at his chest. Jillian Flemming and Alexis Campbell were staring at his face. And the guys were all kind of sizing him up, like they wondered if he was as much of a BAMF as they’d heard.
    Malachi looked down at his jeans and white thermal shirt and frowned. “Raphael said this was what people wore. He told me that I would blend in. You should have said something if—”
    I leaned my head into his shoulder, working hard not to crack up and sneaking in the opportunity to inhale his scent. “It’s not your clothes, my friend. Look, don’t worry about it; all right? You’re just kind of mysterious to them. If you’re ready to answer a bunch of questions about where you come from and what it’s like there, I’m fine with going over to sit with them.”
    Malachi’s eyes darted over to Tegan’s table. “That boy, the one named Aden, is in my physical education class.”
    When he saw Malachi looking, Aden stood up and made this exaggerated get-over-here wave. All eyes at that table were on us.
    “Holy cow, dude, I do believe Aden Matthews is bro-crushing on you,” I said with a laugh. “At least he has good taste. Look—we’ve got to go over there now.”
    Malachi gave the empty table in the corner a look full of longing. “Is that an order?”
    I nodded solemnly. “It’s in the high school code of conduct, clause H-twenty-three-point-one-five, that if the two most popular people in school invite you to their table, you have to answer their summons. Plus, it will increase your pain tolerance.”
    Malachi’s expression told me he actually thought there might be such a code. “Very well, then.”
    As we approached the table, Aden and Tegan scooted down, and Ian and a couple of other guys made way on the other side. Levi, another of their close friends, moved around the end of the table to sit next to Jillian, his girlfriend. I ended up sandwiched between Ian and Malachi. They were built similarly, with lean hips and broad shoulders, leaving plenty of room for my ass but no room for the rest of me. I wondered if I might drown in testosterone and Axe body spray before I finished my sandwich.
    I was taking my first bite when Greg, Nadia’s ex and one of the baseball team’s relief pitchers, approached the table, tray in hand and clearly irritated that I was seated there. He was one of the hangers-on, a kid who desperately wanted to be a part of this clique. But like me, he drove a crappy secondhand