Unraveling Read Online Free Page A

telling me about his first (half) day of school—freshman orientation.
    “After the assembly and the tour, I went to my first two classes—”
    “What do you have?”
    He frowns at me. “Biology and ENS. But the cool part was, after I came out of ENS, Nick and Kevin were waiting for me.”
    Exercise Nutritional Science is a glorified gym class all freshmen have to take, but more importantly… “Nick and Kevin were on campus?”
    Jared nods. “They brought three pizzas from Uncle Vinnie’s for me and my friends, and we all sat and ate, and they told stories about their freshman year. It was awesome.”
    “Awesome?” I ask, even though I don’t need to. Anyone getting attention from the two most popular seniors at Eastview would be glowing a little. If Nick and Kevin were here, I would hug them—even Kevin—because I want my brother to be happy more than anything. And he’ll probably be over the moon all week.
    “Yeah, did you know they had English together their freshman year? Nick said Kevin used to lean back in his chair all the time. And every day their teacher would say, ‘Mr. Collins, don’t lean back in your chair, please,’ and he’d say, ‘Okay,’ but then he’d do it anyway.”
    I am not at all surprised by this story.
    “And then one day when Kevin was hitting on this hot girl in his class, he leaned back just a little too far and he fell over. But it didn’t matter because the girl he liked went out with him that weekend anyway.”
    Again, I’m not surprised.
    “And Kevin said they used to jump up and touch the overhang whenever they were coming down the library steps. They’d even run, jump, hit the ledge, and then jump down the rest of the stairs, but near the end of freshman year, they both did it one time, only when they jumped, Nick fell and got a concussion.”
    I can easily picture Kevin and Nick jumping down the library steps and somehow managing to wipe out. “What about the rest of your classes?”
    He shrugs, obviously less interested. “I have ceramics and then English with Sherwood.”
    I wince at the name of his English teacher. Jared will never be able to write an essay if I don’t get him out of there.
    “Yeah, Kevin took one look at my schedule and told me to run for the hills.”
    “He did?” This time I am surprised—in a good way.
    Jared nods. “He and Nick said I should fill out a schedule change request to be bumped into honors. So I did that before Nick drove me home.”
    I’m suddenly not sure whether I should be pleased or worried about the interest Nick is taking in my brother. On the one hand, I can’t believe he convinced him to take an honors class, and I’m undoubtedly in their debt for getting Jared to actually follow directions and get out of Sherwood’s class—anyone who doubts that there’s something wrong with public education in this country just needs to sit in her class for a day to know—but what will happen to Jared if Nick and I break up?
    “All right, J-baby, you ready?” my dad says before I can think of a way to explain that to my brother.
    “I’d really prefer if you didn’t call me that in public,” I say as I slide out of the hospital bed and into the wheelchair they’ve brought for me.
    My dad smiles because he knows I don’t really mean it, and Jared slips in behind me, half pushing, half hopping. My back is stiff and my leg muscles are still sore, but I could feel worse—I could be dead.
    Also, I’ll be back at school this week. So will Ben Michaels. And I plan on figuring out exactly what happened.
    “What’s for dinner tonight?” Jared asks.
    “Something we can get delivered,” I say at the same time my dad says, “I asked Struz to pick up some Chinese.”
    “Sweet!” Jared says. “You think he’ll get that awesome spicy kung pao chicken? I haven’t had that in forever. Or, oh—call him and tell him to get the special General Tso’s!”
    Ryan Struzinski, aka Struz, has been working with my dad for ten