Invisible by Marni Bates Read Free Book Online Page A

that Lisa Anne Mont-something girl. She freaks me out. No one should have that many extracurricular activities.”
    â€œAh, but she’s applying to Harvard, ” I said, as if that explained everything, which it kind of did. “I’ll be fine.”
    She slumped back in her seat and shrugged. “Maybe. I tend to be a bit on the pessimistic side. After all, things can always get worse.”
    I grinned and pointed to my black eye. “Really? Because I’m pretty sure that getting my butt kicked in the cafeteria counts as an all-time low. Actually, I take it back. This detention is me hitting rock bottom.”
    I really believed that too.
    Until I found out firsthand that actually hitting rock bottom hurts way more than a punch to the face. Even if it never leaves a bruise.

Chapter 7
    M y mom wasn’t exactly thrilled to pick me up from school.
    Luckily, she was too preoccupied with my face, specifically the dark blue bruise forming over one eyelid, to harp about the inconvenience of shuttling me home every time I miss the bus.
    Or maybe not so luckily, considering the way her jaw dropped open when she caught her first good look at me.
    â€œWhat happened, Jane? You look like you’ve been mugged!”
    Sadly, that wasn’t an inaccurate description.
    I did my best to shrug the whole thing off. “Nothing, Mom. I had a small accident in the cafeteria. I tripped.”
    Into the fist of a two-hundred-pound football player.
    I just kept that last part to myself.
    â€œIt looks worse than it is, I promise.”
    My mom examined my face while we idled at an intersection, and I found myself mentally trying to will the traffic light to switch to green so that she would have to pay attention to the road.
    No such luck.
    â€œYou fell?” she repeated in disbelief.
    â€œMm—hmm.” I kept my voice noncommittal. I didn’t want her to guess the truth, but I also didn’t want to lie. Still, when she asks, “How was your day, honey?” she doesn’t want “Gee, well, today I got into a fistfight” to be the answer.
    It can’t be the answer.
    So even though that was exactly what happened, I carefully skirted the truth.
    â€œYou know me, total klutz. I’m just surprised it didn’t happen sooner.”
    That was all it took to get my mom assuring me that, No, I wasn’t a klutz. It was all her fault for letting me drop out of ballet lessons when I was seven, and that if only I had continued I would be every bit as graceful as Elle.
    A lecture that I had grown so accustomed to hearing that I could tune it out effortlessly.
    Our car rolled past the neatly lettered SMITH mailbox and the white picket fence before pulling into the garage.
    â€œWhy don’t you go use the makeup I got you for your birthday? I’ll call you when it’s time for dinner. How does that sound?”
    Like something only an alternate-reality version of myself might be interested in doing.
    I bit the inside of my cheek to keep myself in check. “Uh . . . sure. That sounds great, Mom.”
    Shoving open the car door, I tried to make a hasty getaway to my bedroom. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck deflecting more questions or nodding along to more lectures.
    I didn’t make it past the kitchen.
    â€œGod, what happened to your face? It looks like roadkill. More so than usual, even.”
    Oh, the joys of having an older sister. Scratch that. Oh, the annoyances of an older, more popular sister taking time away from college (and her precious sorority sisters at the Theta Beta Omega house) while she waits for her internship helping the homeless to begin. That’s right: helping the homeless. She can’t even be straight-up vapid and shallow the way sorority girls are in the movies. Instead, she lounges on the sofa in the living room simultaneously filling out grant proposals and watching crap television. And mocking me whenever possible.
    Not like