The Program by Suzanne Young Read Free Book Online

without you?”
    “I had to try. You wouldn’t give up on James.”
    I pause. “No. I wouldn’t.” He nods, looking sorry that he made the comparison, and goes back to his notepad. “Are you going to keep trying?” I ask.
    “No point,” he answers. “She’s not the same person. I don’t even think she’d fall for me again.”
    I blink back warm tears. “I’m sorry.”
    “I know,” he says. “I have to move on, right? At least that’s what my mom tells me.” Miller’s mom was never crazy about Lacey in the first place. She hoped her son would end up with someone more on the cheerful side. But in our lives, there isn’t all that much to be peppy about anymore. And those that are have usually gone through The Program.
    “Miller, you don’t—”
    “Sloane Barstow?” Mr. Rocco calls, and then glares me into silence. Miller’s head is down as he continues to doodle in his notepad under the desk, but I’m relieved that he isn’t planning anything crazy. If we can just keep it together through this latest threat, we’ll survive. And maybe in a few months, when her monitoring is over, we can convince Lacey to hang out with us again.
    “James and I are leaving after lunch,” I whisper when I’m sure the teacher isn’t looking. “You in?”
    “Hell yes. You think I’m here to learn?”
    I smile. Miller sounds like himself for the first time today.Just before I text James to tell him it’s on, I glance once more at Miller, catching what he’s drawing in his notepad. A large, black spiral, taking over the entire page. I turn toward the front, pretending not to notice. In my pocket, my phone vibrates.
    I covertly slide it out and check the message. KEEP MILLER CLOSE. EXTRA HANDLERS ON CAMPUS.
    “Miller,” I whisper. “James says there are more handlers today. Do you think they’re here for you?”
    Miller licks at his bottom lip, as if considering, then he nods. “Could be. Let’s leave before lunch then,” he says. “We’ll go to my house.”
    I agree and text James, glad to leave. The last thing I want is to see my best friend get taken away. Again.
    •  •  •
    I sit next to Miller on his flower-patterned couch as James is in the kitchen rummaging through the refrigerator. Miller chews on his thumbnail, and when he moves to the next finger, I see that they’re all bitten painfully short, bleeding under the slivers of the nail still there. I reach out and smack his hand away from his face and he rests it in his lap.
    “Saw her on the way to school today,” Miller says, staring out the picture window across from us.
    “Lacey?”
    “Yeah. Drove by Sumpter and saw her in the lot, talking to Evan Freeman. She . . . was laughing.” He begins biting on his nail again, but I don’t stop him. Instead I lean my head on Miller’s shoulder and stare out the window with him.
    Returners aren’t allowed to get too close to people for a few months after coming back, but they are allowed to make a few friends—especially if they’re also successful graduates of The Program. I guess the handlers figure that if they’re both scrubbed clean, they can’t be bad influences on each other. Before Miller, Lacey actually went on a few dates with Evan Freeman. She said he used too much tongue.
    And now, the fact that Lacey was talking to him—laughing—all while not realizing that she already knows him, makes me sick. It’s so disturbing that I can barely handle it.
    “What do you think they did to her in there?” I mumble, not sure I really want the answer.
    “They dissected her,” Miller responds, spitting out a bit of nail. “They opened up her head and took out the pieces, putting them back together as a happy-face puzzle. It’s like she’s not even real anymore.”
    “We don’t know that,” I say. “She could still be the same on the inside. She just doesn’t remember.”
    “And if she never does?” He turns to me, a tear spilling over onto his cheek. “Do you really