The Collector Read Online Free Page A

Godzilla was more fitting.”
    I laugh so hard I snort. Charlie narrows her eyes at me like I did something awful, but I’ve decided I like this chick. She’s got spunk. And something tells me her soul has been sealed a few times.
    “Nice kicks, by the way,” Annabelle says. She stares down at my bright red Chuck Taylors, the ones I almost never take off.
    I spin them to the side so she can get a better look. They’re a flippin’ work of beauty. I nod in her direction. “Thanks.”
    “Did you just move here?” she asks. Annabelle’s chin-length black hair is like a helmet, and heavy bangs make a hard line across her forehead. Nothing moves as she speaks.
    “Yeah, his mom is friends with my grandma,” Charlie says before I can open my mouth. “He had breakfast with us this morning.”
    “That right?” Annabelle glares at me with accusation in her green eyes. She doesn’t think I’ll be sticking around and doesn’t want Charlie to get hurt. How endearing. “And now you’re going to sit with us at lunch?”
    “Yep,” I say. “Now what’s a guy gotta do to get grub around here?”
    A few minutes later, I’m sitting with Charlie and Annabelle and staring at cardboard food on a Styrofoam tray. I’d like a one-way ticket back to Grams’s kitchen, please. I’m about to suggest this when a guy moves toward Charlie and drops down beside her.
    “Hey,” he says in a small voice.
    “Blue!” Charlie squeezes his upper arm. I’m surprised by all these friends popping up. Charlie doesn’t strike me as the kind of girl who has any friends, much less more than one.
    The guy collapses against her. What is it with all these people using her as a crutch?
    “I’m going to flunk chem,” he says like a deflated balloon. The guy’s built like a pasty-skinned streetlamp. I want to pull him aside and tell him about tanning beds. Or sunless tanning lotion. Something.
    “No way,” Charlie says. “I’ll help you study.”
    Blue—er, whatever—looks right at Charlie with big blue eyes and grins like a moron. I’ve seen that look before. It happens right before sex and broken hearts.
    “Really? Yeah, that’d be great,” he says. “I don’t know why I’m doing so terrible. Guess I’m not smart enough. That, or my teacher hates my face.”
    Charlie rubs his back, and he hunches into her touch. The guy’s slow, drawn-out words and defeatist attitude reminds me of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh . Man, my dad loved Winnie the Pooh . When I was twelve, I accidentally broke the handle off Dad’s Pooh coffee mug, and the next day he glued on two new ones. He called it his insurance policy. My dad was always doing funny crap like that.
    Blue rolls his head of blond curls around like he’s relaxing his neck, but really he just appears drunk. I bet when this guy gets wasted, he crawls into his bathtub and cries. Annabelle pulls a jumbo package of powdered sugar–covered doughnuts out of her bag and tosses them to Blue. They hit him in the chest.
    “Nice catch.” Annabelle snorts.
    Blue picks them up and eats them one after another, and somewhere between the sixth and seventh doughnut, he notices me. “Hey,” he says, as if I haven’t been sitting here the whole time.
    I nod. “’Sup.”
    Blue gazes at me and then Charlie like he can’t understand why the hell I’m sitting next to her. You and me both, brother. “Charlie, you, uh, going to introduce him?” he mumbles.
    “Mmm.” Charlie stops drinking her neon-orange soda. “Oh, yeah! God! Sorry! This is Dante. He just moved here.” She shoots me a big smile. I try to return it without seeming turned off. Without thinking, Braces. Heard of ’em?
    “He had breakfast with Charlie this morning,” Annabelle adds slowly when she catches Blue’s eye.
    Blue’s head whips toward Charlie. So he can move quickly. Even quicker is the hurt that floods his face.
    Relax , I want to say, that ain’t ever going to happen.

Chapter Four
    Daydream Charlie
    I’m