The Game of Boys and Monsters by Rachel M. Wilson Read Free Book Online

leave my skin exposed.
    Don’t touch.
    â€œI guess I wanted to wear my new school clothes?”
    She holds out the cup, saying, “This will keep you cool.”
    I wait for her to set it down and move her hand away before I take the cup. Her smile’s puckered into a knot with my delay, so I say my politest, “Thank you, ma’am,” and head out to sit on the courtyard’s brick wall, where I squint at the sun, sip watery lemonade, and shake.
    Don’t touch. Don’t touch.
    The words chime in the background, a constant and nagging refrain. The threat of touch pulses and swells the way skin gets raw after a burn. It’s constant and secret and eager to catch me off-guard.
    There’s too much empty space behind me. My Peer Pal could sneak up, put her hand on my shoulder—or his hand! There I go shaking again.
    If somebody asks why, I’ll claim that I’m cold.
    They probably won’t challenge me, but I plan out the script anyway:
    NOSY PEER PAL: (eyeing my long sleeves) What’s with the shivers?
    ME: (throaty) I guess I’m cold-blooded.
    NOSY PEER PAL: There’s something about you. What is it?
    ME: (confident, mysterious, a little tragic even) I’m just me.
    NOSY PEER PAL: You have got to try out for the fall play!
    ME: That’s part of my plan.
    Ridiculous.
    My life is not a play. I am not on stage.
    People talk about stage fright, but life is what’s scary. In a play, you know where to stand, what to say, and the ending’s already been written. I’ve played crazy characters, emotional wrecks, but not one of them ever stopped breathing.
    Don’t touch.
    The magic words help my pulse slow, if only for a second. It’s like scratching an itch that won’t stay in one place. I shouldn’t give in, but thinking the words feels right, safe.
    I almost want to call Dad—he’s always been good at calming me down—but Dad chose to remove himself from our lives, and I’m going to respect that. I’m going to respect that choice till he feels what he’s making us feel.
    If I called, he’d play I-told-you-so: “This might all be too much for you, changing schools? Hanging out with a bunch of temperamental artsy types?”
    So far, I’m not hanging out with anyone. The other new students sit in tight, buzzing rings among the statues on the courtyard lawn. There’s a plaque explaining this sculpture garden as a student project made of recycled materials from Birmingham’s old steelworks and mines. The statue nearest me has a wire frame filled with chunks of limestone roughly in the shape of a giant man. Small stones have been allowed to slip out in a pile at the giant’s feet as if he’s crumbling.
    â€œTitan of Industry,” the giant’s called. Somebody passed his class in irony. I resist the urge to help the Titan by stuffing his stones back in his frame.
    Maybe they couldn’t find a Peer Pal willing to take me. Maybe I’m not supposed to be here—there’s another Cadence Finn, a freshman one, and I got her acceptance letter by mistake.
    And then Mandy Bower waves at me, an honest-to-God Peer—and I hope, hope, hope Pal. Mandy glides through the circles of freshmen as if barely tethered to earth, the half-human product of some Greek god’s indiscretion. She’s forever cursed to fraternize with the merely mortal, and it bums her out.
    Still, Mandy smiles for me. A perfect Greek-goddess smile. “I’m your new Peer Pal. Aren’t you so excited you could puke pink?”
    She doesn’t rush to hug me. That’s a good thing, I guess, a safe thing, but Mandy used to squeeze me nearly to death every time we saw each other.
    â€œHi, Mandy.”
    This year, she’s fashioned herself as a boho badass with rings of black eyeliner and a long, flowing skirt. She still has a ton of blond curls, but now there are streaks of pink on the undersides.