Risen by Lauren Barnholdt, Aaron Gorvine Read Free Book Online

more grateful for his existence.
    “Is there a problem?” Nate says, readying himself for whatever’s coming his way.
    He’s much smaller than Jay, but it probably won’t matter if Nate decides to get physical.
    Nate’s an equal opportunity abuser and he’ll punch a big dude in the face as easily as a little one.
    “Settle down, tough guy,” Jay says. “No problem here. I just told you to leave my friend alone. He’s had enough.”
    “You going to do something about it?” Nate says. His eyes dart back and forth and he’s looking like an animal backed into a corner.
    Jay motions to me. “C’mere Richardson.”
    I maneuver myself so that I’m slightly behind Jay’s left shoulder and out of Nate’s way. Now Jay’s between us. I feel like a little kid hiding behind his daddy. But at least I still have all my teeth and I won’t be drinking my meals out of a straw anytime soon.
    “You’re nothing but a punk bitch,” Nate says to Jay. “You’ll probably try and get your football buddies to come after me if I knock your ass out. Fake tough guy.”
    Jay takes a step forward. “My football buddies got nothing to do with this, little man.” Jay puts his hands in his pockets, and rolls his shoulders, looking quite relaxed.
    “You leave my boy Richardson alone and there’s no problem with you and me. It’s done.”
    “You and me do have a problem,” Nate says, but it doesn’t really ring true. His voice is low and raspy, and his girlfriend looks on, suddenly quiet.
    “It’s over, buddy. Go crawl back under whatever rock you came out of.” Jay makes a shooing gesture.
    “Fuck you.”
    Jay suddenly gets serious, pulling his hands out of his pockets and flexing his back. He looks like giant, as if he just grew ten inches. “Okay.” He’s deadly calm and there’s nothing but confidence radiating from him. “Okay then. Let’s do this.”
    There’s a tense moment but it doesn’t look like Nate really wants to fight.
    Something in his predator radar must have told him that there are easier battles then fighting a six-foot tall, two hundred pound athlete with a bad temper.
    Yet Nate hasn’t quite backed down and the two of them are still looking at one another like a couple of dogs that don’t quite like each other’s scent.
    “Excuse me. Don’t you all have classes you should be in?”
    Ms. Gedwell has come out of the classroom glaring at us with the kind of intimidating expression that only crabby veteran teachers seem to have mastered. That look which says you are and will forever be a cockroach running through these school hallways, and you’d best stay on her good side lest she crush you with one of her black high heels.
    “I know at least two of you are coming with me,” she says, pointing at Jay and I.
    Nate and his girlfriend quickly walk away—even they know better than to mess with a teacher—and Ms. Gedwell turns all of her unwanted attention onto us.
    “That guy started in with Richardson,” Jay explains, “so I told him to back off.”
    “I don’t care who started it,” Ms. Gedwell says through lips that barely move.
    “What I do know is that anytime there’s trouble in my class, you always seem to have a part in it.”
    Jay just smiles innocently at her, which seems to infuriate her further.
    “He really is telling the truth,” I say. “It’s my fault.”
    “Come on, both of you—inside. Pronto.” She shoos us into the lab. Everyone is already seated and working at their computer stations. Middlebury has a pretty high-tech IT department, they even did a big front page article about it in the Herald one time.
    And maybe because of all the hype, Ms. Gedwell seems determined to make us work harder in this class then any other. I don’t mind because I really like computers and computer programming. But for Jay, this class has become his personal hell and Ms.
    Gedwell his mortal enemy.
    Jay recently went so far as to start a rumor that Gedwell used to be a Playboy