Switch by Tish Cohen Read Free Book Online Page A

painfully aware I am making him hateme with my inane babbling. It’s a curse: when I get anxious, a massive amount of words come tumbling out of my mouth. And not just any words. Empty words that come out incomplete because they lack important things like thoughts. There is only one way to stop the leak. Exit, and fast. I tilt my head and move toward the hallway. “Was that … wait, did someone call me?”
    “Listen, Andrea, there’s something I want to ask you.”
    “Yes?”
    He blushes and kicks at something that doesn’t exist on the floor. He sets the guitar down, then glances up at me. He’s never looked so cute. Never. It might be the sunburned freckles across his nose or the not-quite-square-ness of his teeth or that impossibly deep dimple on his left cheek. Or the faded-Levi’s blue of his eyes. I bite down on the side of my tongue to keep it from leaping into action again. “Yesterday,” he says, picking up the guitar again and slinging the strap over his shoulder, positioning the instrument against his back. He pauses. “Back when you and Joules were in your car.”
    “My mother’s car. That’s not
my
station wagon. I would never, you know, get a station wagon.”
    “Okay.” He laughs. “Your mother’s car.”
    I wait for him to continue but he doesn’t. Instead, he gets all hunched and sheepish.
    My insides heat up and I twist my body from side to side to keep from smiling too wide. “So, you were saying?”
    “I was just wondering. I mean, I showed up kind of after the fact, but still. I saw you there in the car, in that cute red shirt, and it just hit me …” He stops talking and stares at me intently. So intently I start to blush.
    What just hit you?
I want to scream.
There I was in that cute red shirt and … what?
    There’s a noise in the hall. I turn to find Joules right behind me, standing there in my white shirt from yesterday. She holds up a hand and waggles her fingers hello.
    Of course. Will wasn’t staring intently at me; he was looking at Joules Adams.
    She sashays into the room and slides herself beneath Will’s arm to rest her head on his shoulder. “Look at the two of you in here all by your lonesome. Should I be jealous?”
    No! Joules Adams cannot be here right now. This is the single most interesting moment of my life so far—here I am, alone with Will Sherwood, waiting for him to ask me who knows what kind of question—and the Lucky One walks in and takes it from me.
    “No,” I say. “I was just, he was just …”
    No one’s listening. Joules is walking her fingers up Will’s T-shirt and he’s laughing, burying his face in her messy hair. An arrow could penetrate my forehead right now; I could drop to the floor and lie here in a pool of my own blood, the person who shot the arrow could burst in, slip on the blood and land on the floor beside me, and no one would notice. The world around these two has become that invisible.
    They face each other now, and Joules rises up onto her tiptoes, rubs her nose against his. He pulls her closer.
    It’s wrong to look. They’re too intimate, completely lost in each other.
    But I can’t move away. I’m stunned by the cruelty of nature. Think about it. Mice being swallowed whole bysnakes? Cruel. Hurricane winds felling trees that have been growing for hundreds of years? Cruel. Me being born Andrea Birch and her being born Joules Adams? Cruel. And then for nature to dangle a creature like Will in front of me and have him openly adore the girl I am not?
    Deeply cruel.
    They poke at each other jokingly a bit, then he runs his hands up through the base of her hair, leans down and kisses her.
    The kiss is gentle at first, his lips barely touch hers. I should look away but I can’t. She reaches up for more, but he pulls back, making her wait. It’s only once she allows him to lead that he moves into the kiss with more force, searching her mouth like he wouldn’t mind swallowing her whole.
    It’s wrong that I watch. I know