Invisible by Marni Bates Read Free Book Online

class.
    â€œIt’s nothing. Really. Can I have it back?”
    But Sam began to read aloud.
    â€œ Jane Smith lived a boring li fe . . . .” I winced, but Sam either didn’t notice my discomfort or chose not to care. “. . . until the day she felt compelled to defend a friend with her fists .”
    â€œYou can stop anytime now.”
    â€œDon’t interrupt. This is getting good.”
    Jane fell in love with fighting. She began to crave the kick of power behind each punch. She lost herself in the thrill of battle, the rush of adrenaline, the beauty buried beneath the crunch of bones. It didn’t come without a cost: realignment surgeries, suspensions, extensive parental lectures. Her frequent hospital stays made it impossible for her to graduate from high school on schedule, and she was forced to watch the ceremony from the bleachers.
    Alone.
    Jane Smith never attended college. The only job she ever managed to hold down was at a sleazy bar where her fists were her first and last line of de fense. Her nights were spent pouring drinks, slapping away randy hands, and breaking up drunken tussles while tone-deaf girls in skin-tight skirts abused Shania Twain’s biggest hits on the karaoke machine. Jane’s days were spent in a dingy apartment with a revolving door of men who all had one thing in common — none of them stuck around.
    Jane Smith died trying to separate two belligerent patrons at the bar. More specifically, she died when a knife accidentally collided with her eye. As the world dissolved into a pool of red, Jane prayed that she would never again have to hear “ I feel like a woman!” howled into a microphone. Never have to hustle drunks out after last call. Never have to return to her barren apartment and her sleazy one-night stands. And for the first time in her life . . . Jane Smith got her wish.
    â€œDid you write this?” Sam asked curiously. “It seems way too twisted for you.”
    â€œYeah. I wrote it today because . . . well, it’s just something that I do, imagining ways to die.”
    Something I also preferred not to share with anyone.
    She raised one inky eyebrow. “The Shania Twain karaoke was a nice detail. I liked it.”
    Those few brusque words were quite possibly the nicest compliment I had ever received. Writing fictional deaths was one of the few things that made me feel like I had control over my destiny, especially when my sister was around. It was the one place where I could create a future for myself that didn’t include comparisons to Elle.
    But while I loved doing it . . . I never knew if any of it was good.
    My work wasn’t exactly something I could pass around for a writing critique, unless I wanted to spend a lot more time in the guidance counselor’s office.
    Which I really, really didn’t.
    â€œThanks. It’s what I do when I get bored in class.”
    â€œWicked,” she muttered, her eyes locked on mine. “How do you usually die?”
    â€œUm . . . it varies. Nothing I actually expect to happen. Death by boredom, death by pencil sharpener, that kind of thing. I don’t have a death wish or anything.”
    â€œThen why did you get so freaked out when I started to read it?”
    I hesitated. “It’s just . . . I know it might be stupid, but my writing is important to me. That’s why I’m trying to get our school newspaper to have a fiction page.”
    Sam’s raccoon eyes widened. “You write with all those pretentious journalism kids?”
    The sad truth was that I couldn’t even say in all honesty that I wrote with them.
    â€œI’m the go-to grammar girl,” I admitted sheepishly. “But not all of them are pretentious.”
    â€œIf you say so.”
    I mulled it over. “They’re just a little intense. They’ll warm up . . . eventually.”
    â€œWell, good luck. I don’t envy you. I wouldn’t want to work with