Troy High by Shana Norris Read Free Book Online Page A

really needed to focus on the game and not on you.”
    To her credit, Elena did look sorry as she twisted one of my beaded bracelets in her hands. “I thought it would be better this way, if he could use the game to work out his anger.”
    I sighed. “I don’t think your plan worked.”
    “Lucas kept calling my cell last night,” Elena said. “And he’s already started this morning. He’s left about twenty messages, begging me to go back to him.”
    “Maybe he really loves you,” I said.
    “Then he should have taken the time to show it before now,” Elena said. She pulled her cell out of her pocket and punched a few buttons. “Here, listen to this.”
    She pressed the phone to my ear and I heard Lucas’s voice. He sounded weird, his voice higher than usual, with a desperate pitch to it. “Elena,
please
,” he said. “What does that Trojan jerk have that I don’t? We’ve been together for years. You know I love you. I’ll do anything to get you back. I’ll be a better boyfriend, I promise—”
    I felt uncomfortable listening to Lucas pour his heart out to Elena’s voice mail, and I pushed the phone away. “Are you sure breaking up with Lucas is what you really want?” I asked. “He doesn’t seem so bad, as far as jocks go.”
    “The way I feel about Perry, it’s … different. Amazing. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.” She gave me a half-smile. “I made the right decision, I’m sure. And now I’ll let you go back to sleep.” She stood and started toward my door. “By the way,” she said, pausing to point to one of the pictures taped to my mirror, “I can’t believe Greg let you put that horrible picture up.”
    The picture was from band camp two years ago, when Greg and I had first met. He had thick braces, bad acne, and hair that he had tried to grow out that year to look cool but instead looked like a huge frizzball. I had taken the picture on our last day at camp, when I had dared Greg to stuff as many grapes into his mouth as he could during breakfast. His cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk’s full of nuts, and he grinned wide, showing the mouthful of grapes and braces, which had remnants of his breakfast stuck in them.
    It was one of my favorite pictures ever and it always made me happy to look at it.
    I thought about Greg and the anger I’d seen in his eyes the night before. “Is Perry really worth all the trouble you caused?” I asked.
    Elena turned back to me, her eyes shining. “Of course!”
    I tried to smile as she waved and left the room.

     
    I was thankful that Greg didn’t suspect that I’d known Elena planned to dump Lucas for Perry. At least no one had given that secret away during the scene the night before.
    But I still worried a little that Greg might be mad at me for leaving the game to go with Elena and Perry, so I called him and got him to agree to meet me at TJ’s, our favorite pizza place on Lacede’s side of town. We always orderedthe same thing, a large thin-crust pizza with everything, no mushrooms on Greg’s half and extra mushrooms on mine.
    He walked into the restaurant five minutes later. Glancing quickly at me, he moved toward the table, his hands buried deep in his pockets and his eyes focused on the floor.
    “Hey,” he said as he slid into the seat across from me.
    “Hi,” I answered.
    We were silent for nearly a full minute. I played with the paper from my straw wrapper while I tried to think of the right thing to say.
    Millie, our waitress, saved me from having to decide right away. “Hey, honey,” she greeted Greg. We were at TJ’s so often that she knew our names, but she always called everyone honey. “The usual?”
    Greg nodded.
    “Okay,” Millie said, smiling wide. “I’ll be right back with your Coke and the pizza.”
    Once again, we were alone, sitting silently. Greg stared at the wall over my shoulder.
    “Hi, Greg!” some girls called as they walked into the restaurant. Spartan cheerleaders. I recognized