Cracked Up to Be Read Free Page B

this poor guy out of his misery.
    “Look, Jake, I’m not in the market for—” I almost say a boyfriend , which is true, but this is even truer: “People.”
    “The-that’s presumptuous of you,” he stutters because he hears the boyfriend of it anyway, like I knew he would. “I . . . I’m not—”
    “Aren’t you?” I study him. I’m really not that presumptuous, but I need to kill this conversation. “Why else would you want to talk to me?”
    “I was giving you a chance to redeem yourself for being such a bitch on Monday,” he says, turning red all over. What a saint. “I thought I’d be nice to you—”
    “And get into my pants in the process, right?”
    “HIT ’EM LOW AND HIT ’EM HIGH!”
    He’s completely gobsmacked. Maybe they don’t talk so forward wherever he came from. And I’ve no doubt he’s probably a nice guy who poses no immediate threat to my hymen—if I still had one—but I meant what I said. I’m not in the market for people.
    I want to be alone.
    So I leave Jake on the bleachers.
    After math, I’m due at the guidance office for my first of many sessions where I talk about my adventures on the straight and narrow and how I feel about it. Grey’s in a cheerful mood when I sit across from her. Cheerful for Grey, anyway.
    “I’m glad you showed up,” she says. “Principal Henley and I had a bet on whether or not you’d skip and now I’m twenty dollars richer.”
    “She underestimates how much I want to graduate,” I say.
    “Well, I didn’t.” Grey smiles. “Let’s get started. I want you to be open with me, Parker.”
    I take a deep breath. It smells suspiciously like bullshit in here.
    “Open?” I repeat.
    “Open. This is your space. Feel free to say anything. You have my word it won’t leave the room. I want you to trust me. In learning to trust me, I learn to trust you, and from that trust we go forward. You get your life back and you graduate a person everyone can be proud of.”
    She looks over a piece of paper in front of her. I’m betting it’s some kind of Parker Tally Sheet.
    “You did well this week, mostly,” she says.
    It’s funny—I think I’d actually rather be learning right now.
    “I guess.”
    “You’ve done most of your homework. Good. Next week try for all of it, okay? Mrs. Jones informed me she’s willing to be lenient about math since you’ve managed to get behind an entire unit, but that’s not indefinite. I thought that was generous of her.”
    “Oh yes.” I nod. “Very.”
    We get quiet. Grey’s office is such a pit. There are no windows in here and some dumb ass thought fluorescent lights would be a great way to compensate. If anyone comes in here ready to die, they probably leave feeling that way, too.
    “What are you thinking about, Parker?”
    I’m thinking about Becky and Chris and how they’ve been making eyes at each other all day, and how in third period I realized by this time tomorrow both of us will have kissed him and how if they fall for each other, that means I’m replaceable. If I’m replaceable, if I step back and put something in the space where I was, I can probably get to be alone faster than I already am. Like, Becky and Chris get together and some new girl joins the squad and they forget about me. Next, I find someone who fucked up worse than I did, like some student prostitute who cuts herself, and that takes care of Henley and Grey and then—maybe I can convince my parents they need a puppy.
    “I’m not thinking about anything.”
    “Fine.” She purses her lips. “Let’s get back to the week. There were a few glitches. The nurse’s office. I don’t know what that was about. And you were late for Mr. Norton’s class on Monday. Mind telling me why?”
    “I ran into the new kid. Jake something. He needed directions.”
    “Oh.” She seems relieved. “So you weren’t—”
    “Don’t worry, Ms. Grey. I wasn’t drinking, smoking, toking or snorting in school. I keep the recreational