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I sat up abruptly "What? Why?"

"That boy out there--he’s not a good influence You shouldn’t be living near a kid like that"

"Like what? What did he do?"

Well That was the wrong question For the next severalit is for a father to leave his youngest daughter for just a few round underneath an unknown hter turns out to be unconscious, the kid has "an attitude," and you don’t "like the look of hi toparaphernalia" in the backseat of the punk’s car By which I think heof dirt, not the Dinty Moore Although who knows? I was entirely out of ined short lengths of thick rubber, bags of heroine, syringes

My dad was still lecturing when Nate showed up andto guarantee that Nate and I were never alone near a horizontal surface, and now here Nate was, sauntering into

My dad turned a deeper shade of red

Quickly, I introduced Bridget to Nate and Nate to Bridget and Bridget toan effort to seee of ould turn out to be an arduous can to ensure that when my father left--three days later instead of one, because the caht--I’d still be in this doret

I won, but West was the necessary sacrifice My dad wouldn’t leave until I’d agreed I would have nothing to do with "that boy"

It was laughable, really, to think I

West and Krishna’s door was always closed, the curtains pulled shut They had a steady streauests, played loud music, and annoyed me with their late hours and the whiff of sandalwood and sticky-acrid smoke from their room that infested our entire floor

West set up that aquariuhts sorew a bu out in our doorway a lot, chatting with Bridget and me

Krishna I can talk to But West … no The way he walks--that swagger that isn’t a swagger--it’s like he knows his way around, even if he’s somewhere he’s never been before His confidenceme stuff about him that ceuy in Bridget’s psych class so the guy could buy a plane ticket to see his girlfriend West charged him interest It makes me wonder whether he breaks kneecaps if someone doesn’t pay him back

He’s just more than I could handle, even if I were allowed to talk to hi from afar--and I wouldn’t have done even that, except I can’t help it When he’s around, I have to look at him

He knows it, too He s down the hall in a towel? God I think I was red for an hour afterward

I never found out what he said tothat, whatever it was, he wasn’t defending my honor It’s hard for rateful, but I can’t I don’t need guys like West Leavitt defendingand that face, that smile … pretty much everyone on campus knoho he is

He’ll draw attention to me My primary purpose in life at the moment is to disappear

When Ia hard-boiled egg and watchingsilences She’s fiercely loyal, endlessly supportive The best person I could possibly have on my side

"If people want to knohat I think about what West did?" I began

"Yeah?"

"Tell the to do with ood Soht?"

"I don’t want to be on a side, Bridge," I say gently "I want people to get a people re me up with him, okay? I need to keep a low profile"

"If that’s what you want me to say, that’s what I’ll say," she assures me "That’ll be the end of it"

I try on a smile and push my chicken across the tray, then pull h the thick layer of frosting Dark fudgy black over a green so bright it’s almost neon

That’ll be the end of it

I wish I could believe her, but I can’t make assumptions like that anymore I’ve learned that when evil crawls out of a snake pit, you have to track it down and squash it Then you have to assu for the to claim the future I’ve alanted--a future that requires reat judge and startthe connections e o even further State office Washington, DC

My dad always says the first step to getting what you want is to knohat you want and what it takes to get it There’s no sharade History Day project, I wrote a book of presidential lirade, I was volunteering to canvass door to door, and I got on the e Democrats and the Putnam Republicans before I even received my acceptance letter

I knohat I want, and I knohat it takes to get it It takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice--but it also takes a clean record No arrests, no scandals, no sex pictures on the Internet

I don’t need anyone going around beating people up on ain

I need to talk to West

I find him on the fourth floor of the library

It’s all journals up here, the shelves shoved together in thethe outside walls, plus a Xeroxliterary criticis by a cart full of books with his back toIt takes me a minute to realize he’s him I’d already looked all over the first three floors, and I was starting to panic that he ht not be here I’ve noticed that I often see him with his cart on Thursday afternoons, but that doesn’t ot earbuds in, and I don’t think he’s seen me, so I take a second to think about what I want to say to hih I took tiloss