What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler Read Free Book Online Page B

slides into the desk behind mine as the tone beeps the beginning of class.
    â€œHey,” he whispers. “You look great.”
    I try not to blush, but fail. Thankfully, Ben can’t see the grin spreading across my face. Rachel can, though. She tries to catch my eye, but I refuse to look at her because she’ll start laughing at me, and then my cheeks will never cool down. I will die the color of a flamingo.
    Mr. Johnston starts taking attendance, and I smile the whole time he’s calling names, until he gets to “Stallard, Stacey.” There’s complete silence for a split second before Randy Coontz does a loud fake cough: “Whore.”
    The word floats across the classroom, batted aloft by a laugh here or there. I glance at Christy, who chortles once before Rachel glares at her, and she bites her lip.
    â€œThat’s a detention for you, Randy.” Mr. Johnston tosses a pad of pink slips onto his desk, and scribbles across the top copy. “Anybody else want to join him?”
    â€œWhat? I just coughed!” Randy squeaks, trying to sound cool. His freckles are popping out on his neck. His ears, which normally stick out like jug handles seem even bigger—blazing red.
    Mr. Johnston holds up a hand. “I’m not an idiot, Mr. Coontz. I was doing the cough put-down before you were born.”
    â€œBut if I miss practice tonight, Coach won’t let me suit up next weekend.”
    â€œHaven’t ever seen you leave the bench. Don’t think Coach Sanders will care.”
    Ben huffs a silent laugh behind me, and I steal a glance overmy shoulder. He is hiding a grin, staring straight down at his desk. My smile returns. Ben is so much smarter than the average doofus on the basketball team.
    Mr. Johnston flips on a projector and opens his laptop to a series of slides showing different strata of sedimentary rock found in Iowa. He is talking about how these layers are usually only visible in vertical surfaces around our state, like boulders, or road cuts where dynamite was used to blast through hillsides so a highway could be built without curves.
    I start to take notes, but I can’t focus on these pictures. The only image I can see is the one of Deacon with Stacey tossed over his shoulder. It’s burned into my brain. I glance over at the empty desk near the window where Stacey usually sits. We don’t have assigned seats in geology, but it’s funny how we all settle into a routine, static and predictable. I sit in the same desk almost every day in this class. Since September, Ben has sat behind me. Lindsey on my left, Rachel to my right, and Christy in front of her.
    Stacey sits over by the window and usually spends the class period staring into the trees at the back edge of the parking lot. The light from the window makes her a silhouette, a shadow of the girl I used to know. Sometimes Mr. Johnston calls on us at random to answer a question—to see if we’re following along. Each time he calls on Stacey, she startles and gives him a blank stare from eyes ringed in too much black liner.
    Is that a cliché? Too much eyeliner on the girl who isn’t paying attention in class?
    This is just a thing we do, I guess—determine who people are by what they look like. A smoky eye means you’re mysterious and dangerous and a little wild, right? Too sexy to care about geology.
    Don’t judge a book by its cover. Mom is always saying that, but most of the time, I think that’s exactly what people are asking us to do: Please. Judge me by my cover. Judge me by exactly what I’ve worked so hard to show you.
    Stacey used to play soccer with us, back in junior high. Now she’s on the drill team with the rest of the girls whose nails are long and bright and covered in sequins. Most of the girls on drill are dancers—or wanted to be when they were little.
    When we were in first grade, there was a big flood, and Miss Candy’s School of