Page 9 (1/2)

I look down What’s left of the bruises Donnie gave ht My stomach twists I roll downthe," I h "Yeah, totally I punch myself in the ar, and I wonder if his mom actually did see people who punched themselves in the arure if I feel this stupid, I :

"So can I sit with you at lunch on Monday?"

"No"

He gets to his feet The way he ht, easy I’ these horrible things about hi I can barely rabs the vodka and takes a long sip from it When he’s finished, he wipes hisso beautiful and lonely about it that I alht away He sets the bottle down and returns to his spot beside ive me for it?" he asks

I stare "What?"

"To sit with ive uess I could hide in the washroom for the rest of the year, but I don’t know It’d be nice to make Anna think that I had an ally The illusion of so on my side I reach into my pocket for an antacid and shove it in s "I don’t know Maybe I should stop putting dents ina waster, but it’s a thousand tiht?"

I ignore that "You want to knohy I was seeing your mom?"

"Why else do you think I let you coht, I’ll tell you"

He leans back and stares at the sky "I can’t I have you ure out why you of all people would need ed," I repeat

He nods "You’re Anna Morrison’s right hand That’s the lowest forhest part of the social ladder There’s not htens before I can reply "Okay, let ot you hooked on Adderall, and shrink visits were part of your recovery process"

I rollboring like an eating disorder"

My stomach lurches I don’t want to talk about this with hi you even if it means I have to sit alone every day for the rest of the year"

"I’ll walk you to your classes," he says, looking at me

I stare at him He’s serious He’ll let me sit with him and he’ll walkhis le--some kind of physical response to let ood to pass up, and before I’ve even really decided to tell hi it out: "I couldn’t eat"

"So I was right" He sounds disappointed "Eating disorder"

"It wasn’t an eating disorder," I say He raises an eyebrow and I flush, trying to figure out a way to explain it "I wanted to eat and I couldn’t"

Everyone thought it was an eating disorder, at first, and that’s when Kara really started hating me It drove her crazy every ti all concerned When I stopped eating, people cared

"I went to a bunch of doctors, and they couldn’t find anything physically wrongyour mom"

"But you can eat now?"

I think of the pills in my pocket "Mostly"

"So you just woke up one day and you couldn’t eat any like that"

Liz is out I put nore that voice indown at the table for breakfast, and ending up over the sink, puking I thought it was nerves I thought it would go away

"Why?" he asks "What was the reason?"

"That’s between me and your mom," I say, but it’s a lie I never told her why I couldn’t eat, even though I knew I just fed her half-truths because she was so warm and I wanted her to like me more than I wanted her to help me And she would’ve never liked me if she’d known "So can I sit with you or not?"

"No But thanks"

I stare at him He stares back, a small smile at the corner of his mouth

"You’re an asshole," I tell hi to school and you’re the reason why Just think about that for a minute and then tell me if you’re still shocked"

"It didn’t have to be like that for you," I snap "You think about that"

"I’enuflect in front of your best friend," he snaps back "Not that it makes a difference Liz Cooper was on her knee for Anna all the tiht?"

"Shut up"