Freeze Frame by Heidi Ayarbe Read Free Book Online Page A

the song just wouldn’t go on.
    â€œCan’t we fix it?”
    â€œI don’t think so.” Dad gently held the record in his hands. “Maybe I’ll bring some records to the café. What do you think?”
    It was the first time Dad had ever asked me what I thought about his café, The Hub. I imagined how cool it would be to have The Hub packed with people, listening to the crackly music. “I think it would be great, Dad.”
    Dad smiled.
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    October 8 was the place where my needle got stuck. There was no way to go on. And it couldn’t be fixed.
    That Thursday, I stood before the judge again. Mark requested that I be put on house arrest and released to my parents until the disposition. I had to continue psychological counseling and was given a prescription for the gray pills. Dr. Matthews explained they didn’t want me to have severe spikes and drops in my moods. The pills would level me.
    But I hadn’t felt anything but emptiness since October 8. And the pills didn’t fill the hole in my stomach. They justmade the days gray, my nights black-red.
    I had to check out of the Kit Carson Juvenile Detention Center like it was the Ritz. They made sure I didn’t swipe any of the stained sheets or anything. At the counter, they handed me a list of my stuff: one PEDRO FOR PRESIDENT
    T-shirt, one pair of jeans, one pair of socks, one gray Wolfpack baseball cap, one navy blue Carson High sweatshirt, one watch. Beside the word watch , somebody had written “broken.”
    I pulled all the items out of the yellow plastic bag, one at a time. Everything smelled burned. The cap still had splotches of brown blood on the inside. The watch was at the bottom of the bag.
    October 8, 10:46.
    â€œEverything there, Kyle?”
    I held the watch in my hands. The brown smudges flaked off.
    10:46.
    I wished I had set it at 10:45—at 10:45 Jason was still alive. I rubbed the face of the watch, smearing the brown spots with my sweaty thumb.
    â€œIs there a problem?” Mark looked at the inventory and the clothes that I had pulled out of the bag. “Kyle?”
    â€œNo.” I shoved the stuff back into the bag and put the watch into my pocket. Mom had brought me fresh clothes to wear.
    Mark shook my hand. “We have a week before yourdisposition, where I’ll be making a sentencing recommendation. As long as you’re doing what you need to be doing, you and I won’t have problems.”
    I nodded. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. Maybe not killing any more friends. Everything else, though, was pretty vague.
    When we got home, Mel ran up to her room, closed the door, and turned on the radio full blast. I went upstairs, too. Everything looked the same. My Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! poster hung on the door, taped together from the time I had torn it up after my cine club had failed in eighth grade.
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    â€œKyle, that’s a cool poster, and you just ruined it.” Jason shook his head.
    â€œNobody else seems to think it was cool. Nobody even came.”
    â€œI was there.”
    â€œThat makes two of us, then.”
    â€œDude, most kids want to see The Lord of the Rings or something. It was pretty out there to debut with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! ”
    I threw the scraps of the poster in the trash. “Whatever. I just wanted to try something different.”
    â€œNobody knows how good that movie was. You’re just a visionary, man.”
    â€œA visionary, huh?” I bit my lip, not wanting to cry in front of Jason. Not all guys would be so cool about their best friend being a total loser. “Want a tomato?” I had bought twenty pounds of cherry tomatoes to sell during the movie instead of popcorn.
    Jason laughed. “Dude, let’s tape this up.” He picked up the pieces of the poster out of the trash.
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    The poster got all hazy and I pushed the memory away. How come I could remember that but