The Nights Were Young Read Online Free Page A

however.
                  It was a small-town high school, set in a decades old building made of brick and steel. Everyone knew everyone, and most of the students had grown up together. From what she could tell the population was divided not among who wore what but among who had known who longer. She met a few people in her classes. Of course they were classes for students with above average grades and intellect, as the principal informed her parents. She met a few teachers who smiled and said, “Welcome to Crossfalls,” before they always left and went about their day. These people were as temporary to Marie as the fading summer. They were the same type of people she had known before, the same conversations of worthless gossip she heard at her former school, the same staring at cellphones and the same apparent lack of sincerity for what they spent their time on. Maybe it was the uprooting, and maybe her parents were to blame, but Marie hated everyone without rationality; she didn’t need rationality… she needed to go back to where she came from. This wasn’t home.
                  Marie sat by herself at lunch for a few days. It was Wednesday when she skipped the food lines and went straight to her usual table in a solitary corner of the cafeteria. She sat down and pulled out her textbook to begin reading for English class. A table full of athletic boys was close to hers, and she could not help but notice the eyes of a bulky, letterman-jacket-wearing football star looking at her. She avoided eye contact at first, but a few moments of the pressure forced her to look his way. He smiled and made a kissing motion at her; his buddies laughed and punched him in the arm. Marie uncomfortably looked back to her book.
                  Suddenly the chair across from her was pulled out. Marie looked up to find a girl who was short, chubby, wearing torn jeans and a tight shirt that showed off her larger than average chest. Her brown hair was back in a ponytail and she was smiling.
    “Mind if I sit down?” the girl asked.
                  “Uh, sure.” Marie closed her book.
                  “Thanks.” The girl dropped into the seat and leaned forward on the table. “I get really tired of those guys.”
                  “What guys?”
                  She pointed towards the table at the wall, not far from Marie’s. There was a group of boys sitting in the chairs around the table while some sat on the table. They seemed like what Marie’s parents would call “trouble”: baggy jeans, messy hair, shirts with graphic images of half-naked girls and blood. They were laughing and cursing, and one was even making a vulgar motion with his hand shaped in a circle.
    “Those guys,” the girl said. “They’re being nasty right now.”
                  “Nasty?” Marie asked.
                  “Yeah, talking about what they want to try with girls and stuff like that.” She drummed her fingers on the table and tightened her lips a little. “Some of them were talking about you.”
                  “What?” Marie asked. “You mean like,” her voice lowered, “sex?”
                  The girl laughed. “Oh my God I’m just kidding! They weren’t even talking about you! Relax.”
                  Marie sat back. Her eyes wandered back and forth to the group of boys and down at her lunch table.
                  “I’m Kate,” the girl said, extending her hand. “Kate Sanders.”
                  Marie shook it. “Marie.”
                  “Nice to meet you, Marie. My brother actually does think you’re hot. That’s him right there.”
    She pointed to one of the boys. He looked like her, except thin as a rail and hairier.
    “His name’s Brandon, but you can just ignore him,” Kate said. “So why do you sit alone all the time? You’re new here,