My Kind of Crazy Read Free Page B

her gaggle of girlfriends, who listen with rapt attention as she recounts how she defied death. I pretend to focus on my lock with all the concentration of a safecracker, careful not to look directly at her. In my peripheral vision, I can see her hair is loose and wavy today, her blond bangs swept to one side. Her lips are painted bubble-gum pink to match her cardigan. If her jeans were any tighter, she’d need a crowbar to get out of them.
    She stops at her locker, which is in the next bank over. The girls fan out around her as she spins the dial and puts her books away. I hear her tell them, “The cops said whoever did it was trying to spell something, like a message. I swear to you, when I looked out, I saw someone standing there. These eyes looked up at me, but not in a creepy way, and then there was just this wall of flames.”
    â€œWhoa.” Becca Henry’s eyes widen and her mouth hangs open.
    â€œThe thing is, I don’t think he was trying to hurt anybody. I believe that message was for me. I mean, right before it happened, I heard him call my name .”
    â€œI’ve got chills,” Hannah Wolf says as she runs her fingers up and down her arms.
    If I were a cartoon and Amanda looked over at me right now, she would see my heart practically beating out of my chest. I glance at her. She’s smiling and eating up the attention, as several of her friends make swoony noises. I decide to reorganize my locker so that I can keep listening.
    â€œThat’s so romantic. Who do you think it was?” Jenny O’Leary asks.
    Amanda shrugs. “I don’t know. But I’m dying to find out.”
    Hannah grabs Amanda’s arm and bounces on the balls of her feet as she says in a loud whisper, “O-M-G! Maybe it was Clay Kimball!”
    Clay is a douche-bag jock on the baseball team who thinks that being able to hit a ball with a large stick entitles him to be a jerk. For reasons that remain a mystery, women seem to find this attractive.
    â€œNo, Clay’s too tall and built. This guy was shorter and skinnier.”
    â€œHe was a midget?” Jenny crinkles her nose.
    Jesus, I’m five foot ten. It’s not like I’m a pygmy.
    â€œNo, not exactly. Just…not tall. And his eyes were sort of beady, but that could have been from the heat of the flames. He might have been squinting.”
    They all nod in agreement. I cringe and bite down on my tongue to keep from responding. Then Amanda closes her locker and adds in an extra-dramatic voice, “What if he’s totally hot and he’s scared to talk to me now that my house nearly burned down and I almost died?”
    More like part of her lawn and a tree caught fire—and the firemen were right on it—but the girl certainly knows how to tell a compelling story. Her power of exaggeration only adds to her charm, and I smile to myself, knowing she’s talking about me, which is six kinds of crazy, even if she did just describe me as short and unathletic with beady eyes.
    The girls collectively suck in their breath, and Hannah tells her, “If it’s meant to be, he’ll find you. He obviously went to a lot of trouble to get your attention, so he’s not going to simply disappear, right? Not if he really loves you.”
    Love? Who said anything about love?
    â€œYou think so?”
    â€œOf course!” Jenny squeals with absolute authority. “But are you mad about what happened? I mean, like you said, he could have killed you.”
    Amanda shakes her head, hugging her notebook to her chest. “No. I just want to know who he is and what he wanted to say last night.”
    Becca nods and tilts her head, letting out a wistful sigh. “It’s so totally romantic, like a Cinderella story. I wish stuff like that happened to me.”
    Now this is the reaction I was hoping for when I started researching promposals online. It’s the perfect opener. I get a blast of courage and I