Breakable Read Online Free

my pace, build back up. Said the team was ready to support me – that some of the guys had discussed having decals ofMom’s initials added to our helmets or sewn on to the sleeves of our jerseys. I sat stonily on the other end of the line, waiting for him to realize that I wouldn’t argue, but I also wouldn’t go.
    I don’t know if Dad continued to pay or if they stopped billing him, and I didn’t care.
    There was this girl I’d liked, before. (Everything now was either
before
or
after
.) Before-girl’s name was Yesenia. I hadn’t seen her since the last day of seventh grade, but we’d texted a couple of times over the summer and had been friends online, trading cryptic social-media comments, which is sort of like flirting in semaphore.
Cool shot
.
Haha awesome
.
Pretty eyes
. This last was from her, one comment of a dozen on a pic Mom had taken of me on Grandpa’s beach, standing in the surf at sunset.
    Hers was the only comment that mattered. It was also the boldest thing either of us had ever said to each other.
    I’d grown over the summer. A good thing, because Yesenia and I had been the same height in seventh grade, and there’s this thing about girls and height – they want to wear heels and not be taller than the guy. I’d added three inches and had hopes for more. Dad was over six feet. Neither of my grandfathers was.
    The only daughter of an ambassador from El Salvador, Yesenia was beautiful and dark, with short, silky black hair and huge brown eyes that watched me from across classrooms and lunch tables. She lived in a brownstone off Dupont Circle. I’d talked Mom into letting me ride theMetro to her place alone two weeks before, but hadn’t yet built up the nerve to ask Yesenia if I could come over.
    That second week of school, I managed to catch her without her mob of friends – a rare occurrence with thirteen-year-old girls. ‘Hey, do you wanna go see a movie Saturday?’ I blurted the invitation and she blinked up at me, hopefully noticing those three inches. She was the tallest girl in our grade. Some guys had to look up to
her
. ‘With me?’ I qualified when she didn’t answer right away.
    ‘Um …’ She fidgeted with the books in her arms as my heart thudded out
dammit, dammit, dammit
, until she said, ‘I’m not really allowed to go out with boys yet.’
    Huh. My turn to fidget in response.
    ‘But maybe … you could come over and watch a movie at my house?’ She was hesitant – like she thought that maybe I’d turn her down.
    I felt like I’d been dunked head first in cold water, yanked back out and then kissed, but I just nodded, determined to play nonchalant. So I’d asked a girl out. No big deal. ‘Yeah, sure. I’ll text you.’
    Her friends showed up at the end of the hall, summoning her and eyeing me curiously. ‘Hi, Landon,’ one of them said.
    I returned the greeting with a smile and turned, hands in pockets, mouthing
yes, yes
,
YES
under my breath, as though I’d just fired a puck into the goal right past the goalie’s padded knee. Saturday was only five days away.
    Twenty-four hours later, my life had shifted into
after
.
LUCAS
    ‘You. Are. An.
Asshole!
’
    My lips pressed into a thin line, and I struggled to contain the retort flashing across my brain:
Wow. There’s one I’ve never heard
.
    I continued filling out the parking ticket I was thankfully nearly finished recording.
    I feel sorry for people whose meters run out before they get back to the car. I feel sorry for people parked in admittedly ambiguously labelled lots. I do
not
feel sorry for a student who parks directly under a FACULTY PARKING ONLY sign.
    When she realized that her appearance and predictable insult hadn’t motivated me to quit writing or even glance up, she tried a different tactic. ‘C’mon,
pleeease
? I was only in there for like ten minutes! I swear!’
    Uh-huh.
    I tore the ticket off and extended it towards her. She crossed her arms and glared at me. Shrugging, I pulled out an