Keep Holding On by Susane Colasanti Read Free Book Online

Julian Porter has only happened a few times at lunch. Usually, I’ll just sneak glances at him. Sometimes I can feel him looking at me. Or I’ll see him looking at me out of the corner of my eye, but I’ll pretend that I don’t.
    Attempting eye contact at lunch always involves a huge degree of risk. If I’m trying to look at Julian without looking like I’m actually looking and I accidentally look at someone else, there could be a problem. They could take it as an invitation to launch a verbal attack.
    Tommy’s sitting alone again at his usual table. Apparently, having money isn’t always enough to avoid persecution. It’s amazing how two rejects like us can force everyone else to deal with having two less tables available. I guess we have some power in a warped way.
    When I got to the cafeteria, I tried to anticipate where Warner and those guys would sit. Then I picked a table far from there. Most kids sit at the same table every day. But with Warner, it’s like this incessant game of musical tables we’re playing where he’s the only one having fun.
    Of course Warner sits at the table behind mine. His friends immediately swoop in after him.
    “What’s for lunch?” Warner asks from behind me. I don’t turn around. I know his question is meant for me. I’m reading. Which at lunch mostly consists of pretending to read. But I find that when I read or listen to music in here, people pretty much leave me alone.
    I keep Pretend Reading.
    “Lettuce sandwich again?” Warner inquires. “Ooh, or maybe you got the mayonnaise and mustard one this time! Aren’t those the
best
?”
    “Maybe her mom wiped her butt and put that in a sandwich,” his friend says.
    Warner’s whole table cracks up. I hear the slap of a high five.
    My face burns. I stay as still as possible in Pretend Reading mode. If I make any kind of move like switching seats, they’ll know they’re getting to me. And that will just make it worse.
    My lunch bag of sorry kitchen scraps remains unopened on the table. I can’t deal with it today. I’m just relieved that Julian’s sitting like five tables away. If he heard what Warner and his friend said to me, I would die.
    I peek at Julian. He isn’t looking.
    There’s a group of girls at the table in front of mine. They look so happy, talking and laughing like school’s the most comfortable place in the world. I know their names. I know the clubs they belong to and the instruments they play and the teams they’re on. But I can never really know them. Not anymore.
    I tried to sit with them on the first day of school. They said all the seats were taken. I used to be really good friends with some of them. They’d come over to my house to play and I’d go over theirs. That was back in elementary school before mother started to change. Back when she was almost like a real mom.
    Before we moved to our apartment, mother and I lived with Lewis in a big house like everyone else. Mother met Lewis whenI was two. He was a professor at the college near the bar and grill where she worked. He went there for lunch and always sat in mother’s section. His wife had divorced him and moved to France a few years before. His kids were in college. He had the whole house to himself.
    Living with Lewis was nice. I had most of the same things other kids had. There was lots of room. There was always enough to eat. And I could have friends over without feeling like I had to hide anything. I even had a huge birthday party in third grade. My entire class came. Back then, it felt like I fit in. It felt like I had a place to belong.
    Then Lewis got cancer.
    He died when I was eleven. Lewis and mother weren’t married, so we had to move out. He left the house to his oldest son. Most of his savings went to his other kids and relatives. Lewis left mother some money, but he didn’t have much to leave and she used it up quickly. She didn’t want to move to another town. That’s when she found our apartment. That’s when