Eleven Things I Promised Read Free

her pinched skin, the heavy tape and plastic tube, and herlooking anywhere but her hand. I looked up at the liquid dripping down the tube from a couple of plastic pouches, pulsing into her.
    The door opened behind us, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Mrs. Grant walk in. Stella’s mom walked over and laid her hand on my shoulder. “Franny, do you think you could go to our house and pack a bag for Stella? You’d know what she wants, and that way, we can stay here.”
    â€œSure—sure, I’ll do that. No problem.” I knew they were probably trying to get rid of me for a while, and though it made me feel guilty to think this way, there was a part of me that was all right taking a break. Stella looked so unlike herself. It was almost as if I didn’t know this Stella. I jumped up and started for the door, then turned back to take a last glance at Stella. “I’ll be back later, okay?”
    She didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure if she was asleep or if she just didn’t hear me.
    I headed out into the hallway and nearly bumped into Mason. He was holding a bundle of blue fabric.
    â€œThese jeans belong to you? I found them in the parking lot.”
    I couldn’t respond.
    â€œYou said . . . you lost them? I went outside to get some fresh air by my truck and, well. I saw these crumpled on thepavement like someone dropped them.”
    The floor seemed to fall away underneath me, and I felt like I was losing my balance, plunging, arms outstretched, reaching for the ground as if I were in an elevator that was crashing.
    â€œYou don’t look good.” Mason grabbed onto my waist, forcing me to lean against him. “You feeling all right?”
    â€œNot . . .” I couldn’t find the words. I couldn’t figure out what to do. I knew I should sit down, but I didn’t know where to find a chair.
    He took my arm and guided me to a chair by the nurses’ station. “Sit down for a minute. Sit right here. Head down, Franny. Breathe slowly.”
    I leaned over, head between my legs, eyes facing the shiny hospital floor. I hugged the jeans as if they were my favorite blanket. My warming blanket.
    â€œCome on, Frances. It’s going to be okay.” Mason crouched down beside me and rubbed my back once or twice.
    Easy for him to say. He hadn’t seen her yet.

CHAPTER 1
    I must be crazy . That was all I could think as a white, slightly dented van from Rocco’s Ink Den pulled up in front of my house at seven in the morning.
I’m not really about to do this, am I?
    This was different when Stella and I planned on doing it together.
    Her parents were going to drive us to the start in Bangor, Maine. The ride went from there along coastal Maine through New Hampshire and then finished in Boston. Stella’d had it all figured out. How we wouldn’t have to hang out with our school bike group all the time, because a few of them were pretty annoying. How after the ride we’d spend a day or two in Boston being tourists and recovering. But now it was justme, standing by my driveway with my mom, who, no joke, was wearing a robe and slippers because it was Sunday and she didn’t have to get ready for work.
    A lot had happened since Stella’s accident, but the upshot of it was that I was headed off on the seven-day, three-hundred-fifty-mile Cure Childhood Cancer Ride without her.
    The van’s passenger door opened, and Max Modella climbed out. “You ready?” he asked. Max, with his shoulder-length hair and muscular, tattooed arms, looked more like a twenty-five-year-old than one of my classmates. I guess that’s what happens when your uncle owns the tattoo parlor in town.
    He could make a plain white T-shirt look hot, the way underwear models do. That’s all I know. Something about his angular nose and cheekbones. He had about a dozen girlfriends at school; I couldn’t keep track of who was current. His uncle Rocco had