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Finally I looked over and saas Jacob I stopped, surprised and pulled out my earphones

He was dressed as he alas A true skid

“What are you listening to?” he asked

“Alice in Chains Music Box,” I replied, rather proudly, thinking he ht approve

“They’re all right I h That fucker is irreplaceable But he was too smart for the band anyway”

I wasn’t sure as so ss, but I hadn’t been too smart either Then I noticed Jacob’s wrists They rapped in thick bandages

“You said Jacob had tried to kill hih my memory

“That’s what they said Everyone at school,” I told him “Earlier that week, there were ruirl So car on fire And I never saw Jacob at all that week, so I believed it But then there was no news of a funeral or anything, no news anywhere really, so I started to think it was just a rumor One probably started by hi He’d often disappear from school for even weeks at a time”

“But the wrists told you otherwise”

“Well, d’uh”

But even though I had proof in front of me that Jacob had tried to co it up with hih I liked that he was speaking to e Maybe it had so dark and I alking alone with only my schoolbooks to protect e hih that I thought I should start taking self-defense classes one day

“And then what happened, Perry?”

I shrugged “He walked me home We talked a bit”

“What about?”

“That day? It was just music He went on about Lane, then Sid Vicious, then sooodbye to me about a few houses down from my house”

“Did you know he lived in the area?”

“No And I still don’t think he does I mean, he never did”

“You think he’s still alive?”

I gave the doctor an odd look, confused Where was he getting that information from? “Of course he’s still alive Why wouldn’t he be?”

I could tell the doctor wanted to say souys talk about the rest of the time?”

I sighed and racked my brain back I couldn’t really remember all that well I think most of it was nonsense I ht, we talked about a lot of things and I still had trouble re Jacob keptto me that the doctor would have loved to know But it would only egg the doctor on and I’d be back for another session I knew enough about psychiatrists at this point to kno they worked

I gazed out theagain, letting hts float away Yes, the leaves were now certainly on fire In fact, all of Portland looked like it was ablaze If I looked hard enough, there was a strange shimmer to the horizon, a weird, warpy air that I had seen before But the shimmer wasn’t in the distance, it was close to e that stood betweenfire that quickly turned the trees outside to tinder and the buildings into a merciless inferno

It wasn’t real though I knew that much It wasn’t real this time But when it happened the other day, at Adrianna Gee’s house, it had been real The flames were real that day And had Jacob not been there when the whole party went up in fla in Dr Freedman’s office I wouldn’t have been anywhere

And to think they called it an “accident”

CHAPTER TWO

“Hey! Miss Muffin Top! Anyone ho voice shot across the field like a rocket

I took my face off the mud and fastened th I had left

I opened ht better of it The last ti fifty push-ups in the gooey brown irly push-ups either

I sed hard, battling e to be a smart aleck, and pushedbeneath

“I said,” Brock continued, satisfied with my non-response, “once you’re done the push-ups, I want you to run around the field twice, then you can coroup”

At that, ain At least it was on the fiftieth

What was I, a pariah? I had been doing this stupid bootcamp for teeks now and froeant Brock (how perfect of a name is that, by the way – it’s like Bastard + Jock = Brock) had it in forin the afternoons every other day and every other day I had to do more push-ups than everyone else in the class Now I knoas paying so sole me out

That said, I did have a hard ti my mouth around him The other trainer, Michelle, eet but fir Jillian Michaels, but Brock kne to push ood

I rolled over onto ot tobeneath me We were in a field in eastern Portland, the site of our twisted fitness sessions, rain or shine Since it was the end of Nove rarely happened and it was cold It didn’ton me, the cardio circuit drills in sleet and thunder, the days where I couldn’t even walk up the stairs to my room, I was almost done with the boot ca away stronger, more confident, and just the tiniest bit slimmer