Kiss of Broken Glass Read Online Free Page B

of Being Screwed
    At my school, nobody narcs on cutters.
    Not the goody-two-shoes
    who pretend they don’t notice
    and turn their heads the other way.
    Not the stoners who can barely
    raise their eyelids.
    Not the jocks who are too busy
    growing tumors on their arms.
    Not even the jerks who call us
    emo’s and attention whores ,
    under their breath.
    Nobody.
    So that makes Tara the first
    narc in history to go running off
    to “get help” just because
    someone needs a Band-Aid.
    Only that’s not why she did it.
    Tara did it because she’s a freaking
    competitive cutter who can’t stand it
    if anyone has better scars than her,
    and she got it into her head that
    people were paying more attention
    to me than to her.
    That’s crap, of course.
    But that didn’t stop her.
    And now that I’m gone,
    she’ll own fourth period lunch,
    with her duct tape bandages
    and her six-inch slits,
    and she’ll be a freaking rock star
    just like she wants.

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I Wonder What Rennie Thinks
    Does she think that Tara’s
    a two-faced greedy bitch
    for ratting me out?
    Or that I’m a dumbass
    for getting caught?
    It’s a very tricky relationship.
    The three of us.
    I remember how one time
    my math teacher spent the whole
    period talking about triangles.
    How they’re the strongest shape,
    and that’s why they’re used for building
    bridges and trusses because they won’t
    geometrically distort, or some crap like that.
    But as usual, school has nothing to do
    with real life because if you ask me
    triangles are the weakest shape of all,
    ready to blow apart at any minute,
    especially when the three corners are
    Rennie,
    Tara,
    and me.

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If Sean Was a Shape
    He’d be a circle.
    Pure.
    Honest.
    Perfect.
    You can trust a circle.
    It doesn’t have any crooked angles
    hiding secrets in the corners.
    It’s the same with Sean.
    Sure. He can be annoying
    when he blurts things out
    like little brothers do,
    but at least he says
    what he means.
    He’s not a liar.
    Or a fake.
    I bet you could search
    a thousand classrooms,
    and cafeterias, and gymnasiums,
    and never find that kind of honesty
    anywhere else. Believe me. I’ve tried.
    I think Sean may be
    the last circle on earth.

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Wednesday 4 p.m.
    It’s bad enough we have to spill our guts
    at 8 a.m. when any normal teenager
    would still be hibernating.
    But apparently one gut spill per day
    is not enough for Attaboys.
    So when the afternoon rolls around,
    they herd us back into the therapy
    room for another session.
    The only good thing is that Jag’s
    sitting six inches away from me
    in his Screaming Zombies T-shirt
    and I can smell the faint woodiness
    of skateboard on his skin.
    Jag reaches his arms back to stretch,
    and it’s like every muscle in his body
    is in perfect, rippled balance,
    and I can just imagine
    how good he looks on his long board,
    pivoting his Levi’s hips,
    flexing his marble six-pack,
    surfing the smooth cement
    with his arms long and low
    like fighter-plane wings.
    He catches me staring at him
    and smiles with that half-broken grin
    until I feel so sweet and tickly inside it’s
    like I’m swirling in a cotton candy machine.
    Too bad Roger has to ruin it.

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Tap, Tap, Tap . . .
    Roger drums his pen on the whiteboard
    like he wants to knock some sense into us.
    He says we should talk about having goals,
    because that’s what all adults think we need.
    Goals and college plans and career objectives.
    But what do they know?
    I mean, who says their world is right