Broken Read Free Page B

had perfectly
symmetrical features and one of those bodies that required hours
each day in the gym to maintain. I wanted to hate her. It didn't
make any sense, she could hardly be blamed for taking care of
herself, but it just didn't seem fair. Simply by being in the same
town as us, she automatically made every other girl in school feel
like bloated, heifers. Surely she was somehow cheating to be doing
so well in the subtle, nasty game in which every high school girl
ranked herself against every other female.
    I probably would've spent the rest of the day
depressed, but once she was out of my line of sight I was able to
see the boy following her. He was perfect. Just looking at him
drove every other thought out of my mind.
    If the girl that'd just walked by me without
acknowledging the existence of any of us lesser beings was every
boy's ideal physical specimen, the boy was every girls' dream. A
gorgeous fantasy breathed into life by some merciful goddess, one
who wanted to give us each a glimpse of what awaited good little
girls in the afterlife.
    Skin the perfect shade of tan, not at all
artificial looking, disappeared into the collar of a thin,
light-blue button down shirt. The cut of his clothing hinted at
designer origins, but the garment was mostly notable for the way it
stretched over a pair of broad shoulders that looked like they'd
been chiseled from marble, or possibly cast in bronze.
    My eyes made it as far as the equally
impressive chest before I forced them upwards. Anyone built like
that should be ugly to keep things in balance. Not him. His square
jaw and even features were nothing less than perfection. If he ever
chose to model, the editors of every major fashion magazine would
have pulled out all the stops to land the contract for his debut
appearance. The whole issue would have to be pictures of him
though. No amount of airbrushing would suffice to allow other men
to ever share the same magazine with him.
    I expected to begin hyperventilating any
second, but my lungs seemed frozen. My body should have been
screaming for oxygen. Instead every part of me was screaming for
more of that divine face. He'd been looking to his left; I pried my
gaze away from his profile just long enough to take in a casual
tangle of dark, curly hair, and then he was turning towards me.
    Vague, traitorous hopes that the other side
of his face was marred with a birthmark, or a series of ghastly
scars evaporated away as I took in eyes just a few shades darker
than the blue of his shirt. Somewhere a cosmic force was trying to
fix a pair of large, intangible scales. Scales, that'd been twisted
into a mangled mess and then torn into two pieces.
    I'd expected the shallow, narcissistic eyes
of a runway model. Instead, the eyes that connected with mine
somehow hinted at depths I'd never even imagined existed.
    My lips, acting of their own volition,
started to pull back in a tentative smile, but before they could
complete the action, the heart wrenching eyes narrowed. The
emotions swooping across the surreal face were too quick to
identify, but the way he turned slightly away as he passed all but
proved they'd been a close cousin to distaste.
    Chapter 3
    For a moment I was too busy mentally flogging
myself to hear Britney's question.
    "Have you been to Vegas yet?"
    "No, we just got here last night." And I've
been too busy making doe eyes at gorgeous boys who are completely
out of my league to do anything like take a shopping trip.
    Britney perked up at my
answer. "We  so  have to go down there soon. It's the only place within
an hour and a half where you can do any decent
shopping."
    Normally the prospect of driving for hours to
watch someone else spend money I didn't have, sounded roughly as
appealing as laying out naked at the pool until I had second degree
burns on my whole body. Then again, maybe burns wouldn't be so bad
if they let me disappear into the anonymity of a large crowd in an
actual city rather than dealing with hick