Paranoid Park by Blake Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

looked down the table and saw Macy McLaughlin. She was with some other sophomores. They looked so young to me, sitting there, gabbing about whatever. Macy turned in my direction and I quickly looked down into my food. But I thought about her: I remembered how she followed me around in sixth grade. She was really outgoing back then. She would follow me on her bike, pestering me, asking me endless questions. She wasn’t like that now. She stayed with her cool friends. I thought about that for, like, twenty seconds-which I was grateful for. That was twenty seconds I wasn’t seeing that security guard lying in the tracks.
    After fifth period, I walked by Jennifer’s locker. She had first lunch that day, so I hadn’t seen her. She was on her cell phone, and she kept flipping her hair. When she finished talking, she didn’t look to me. She bent down to get something out of the bottom of her locker. “So did you and Jared have fun on Saturday?” she asked.
    I slipped my hands in my pockets. “Not really.”
    “What did you guys do?” she asked.
    “Nothing. Just... hung out....”
    “You should have come with us. We went to Elizabeth’s house and went swimming.”
    I nodded.
    “But I guess that doesn’t really interest you very much,” she said. “I guess skating with Jared is more fun.”
    “I already told him I would.”
    That was the weird thing about Jennifer. She could be a little hard on you sometimes. But then she would turn around and be nice again.
    “What are you doing after school?” she asked.
    “Nothing.”
    “We could do something if you want.”
    “Okay,” I said.

    After school, I got my books and walked behind the cafeteria to meet Jennifer. Jared was skating with Christian Barlow and Paul Auster in the parking lot. They were the other two serious skaters at our school, besides Jared. They practiced kick-flips, ollies. I watched for a minute.
    “Where’s your board?” asked Jared, coming over.
    “Left it at home.”
    “Why’d you do that?”
    “I dunno,” I said.
    “What are you doing now?”
    “Hanging out with Jennifer.”
    Behind him, Paul Auster landed a kick-flip. Christian tried one but couldn’t land it. Jared pushed across the parking lot and tried one, too, but he fell on his ass.

    Jennifer and I went to her house. No one was home, and we went upstairs to her bedroom. She seemed really excited about something, and when we got in her room she shut the door and jumped on her bed.
    “So guess what happened to Petra?” she asked, bouncing on the bed. Petra was one of her friends.
    “What?”
    “She did it! With Mike Paley! They did it, like, three times last weekend.”
    “Wow,” I said. Petra and Mike Paley had only been going out for a couple weeks.
    “Do you think that’s too soon?” she asked, still bouncing.
    “I don’t know,” I said. I sat in her chair and looked at the stuff on her desk.
    “I think it is,” gushed Jennifer. “Kinda. But maybe not. Nobody really knows about it yet. She hasn’t told that many people. But still. Can you believe that? Petra and Mike! And Maddy did it last summer. It’s, like, totally happening to all my friends!”
    Jennifer jumped up from her bed and went to her closet. She stood in front of a long mirror inside the door and brushed her hair. She had beautiful long blonde hair.
    I watched her. I breathed a low sigh. I could still feel that ache in my chest. It was always there. No matter what else was happening.
    “So now everyone’s asking me,” said Jennifer seriously.
    “Yeah?”
    “They want to know when I will. And if I want it to be with you.”
    I swallowed. “What do you tell them?”
    “I say I don’t know. I barely even know if you want to be my boyfriend.” She held her hair and brushed it. “I mean, if you’d rather go skateboarding than hang out with me ...”
    “I told you—” I said, but I felt dizzy all of a sudden. My head swam. I felt choked in by the overstuffed room, the frilly comforter,