All We Have Left Read Free Page A

cold dead when I get home.”
    Nobody laughs this time.
    I glance over at him, and there’s something in his eyes that makes me want to smile, or cry, or say I’m sorry. Emi is frowning, and she rolls her eyes at me. She takes school very seriously and hates it when less-serious students disrupt her class zen.
    I, however, am intrigued.

    This all goes on for a week. Me, turning in my homework on time and acing Friday’s quiz like the good girl I’ve always been, and Nick Roberts baiting Mr. Laramore under his breath and nodding his head the rest of the time to the music playing in his earbuds.
    I’ve started noticing the way his soft, dark hair sweeps over his eyes, that his long fingers are covered with paint and always in motion as he taps them on his thigh, twirls his pencil, or plays with the thick plugs in his ears.
    I wonder what he sees when he looks at me, those fleeting glances out of the corner of his eye. A completely ordinary girl, not cute, not awful, just there . My blond hair is always pulled back in a long ponytail, and my pale blue eyes look like they’ve been through the wash too many times. Nothing special, so lusterless that I wonder sometimes if I could just fade away without anyone noticing.
    But Nick has caught me staring at him more than once, and he’s nodded a couple of times, like, We’re the same, aren’t we? Even if you don’t show it on the outside, we’re alike, you and me , and I think that he sees me, even if no one else does.
    I don’t know if it’s true, but it makes me feel good, when nothing has been feeling good lately. It’s as if every nerve in my body is shrieking and no one hears it but me.
    The bell rings on a cold, shiny February day, and Emi and I rush with the others toward the hall after class.
    Entrepreneurship counts for college credit, which is the reason Emi and a bunch of the smart kids are taking it. I’m taking it because I figure if anybody is going to take over my dad’s climbing shop one day, it’ll have to be me. Some girls take it just because Mr. Laramore is hipster hot, if you like angsty guys in their thirties with thick black glasses, skinny jeans, and high tops. It’s a pretty diverse crowd that battles for the doorway and the freedom of the hallway.
    I’m watching Nick as he slips through the door, and Emi nudges me.
    “Why are you so into him?” she asks as we jostle together, caught in a bottleneck at the doorway.
    Emi Yamada has been my best friend since the sixth grade. She is dedicated and somber, skinny and gangly, with short, spiked black hair and a row of rings along her earlobes. Her narrow amber-colored eyes light up the most when she’s talking about apples, clouds, and streams, which might makeyou think she really likes nature, but only as wallpaper on her tablet screen.
    “I was thinking I should mix it up, trade in my earrings for some plugs,” I say, fingering the small gold hoops in my ears. I’m not serious, but I really don’t know how to answer her.
    She shakes her head. “They wouldn’t look good on you,” she says.
    Because it’s Emi, I can’t tell if she really thinks I want a pair of ear plugs like Nick’s or if she’s trying to tell me something else.
    As the jam breaks and we swirl out into the hallway, Emi and I get separated. I’m heading for Teeny’s locker when a group of mimes come down the middle of the hall, the drama kids doing live art. People laugh as they goof off, acting as if a windstorm is blowing them around the halls, and then walking a tightrope, with expressions of terror on their faces. I step to the side to let them pass.
    But instead they surround me and start to pat the air all around me.
    “Uh … ,” I say, because what the hell?
    People are starting to gather around, and suddenly I realize that the mimes have me in a box. They are feeling along the side of it with their hands, and Jenny Knowles jumps up to feel the top of it, catching my eye and winking as she lands back on