The Mind Readers Read Free

knew.
    Still, I could admit the days
with my shallow friend were growing more difficult. There was only so much a
person could take. I brushed aside the depressing thought aside.
    “Where should we go?” I asked, a
secret smile playing on my lips.
    “Lakeside!” she said.
    Lakeside was a diner near the ocean.
Half the teens worked there after school, the other half hung out. There wasn’t
a lot to do in our small town, but years ago the students had quickly taken
over the restaurant as their own.
    “So get this, Trevor suddenly
has to study Saturday night.” Emily glanced briefly at me, interested in
catching my reaction. The wind was blowing her hair around her perfect face.
But while my hair was getting stuck in my mouth, whipping me in the eyes and
wrapping around my neck in a chokehold, she somehow managed to look like a
model in a print ad. Ugh, so not fair!
    “What do you think?” she asked.
    I thought, no, I knew Trevor was
seeing someone else from another school. But I also knew how Emily wanted me to
answer. I shrugged, not quite meeting her gaze. “Maybe his parents are on him
about his grades.” Emily didn’t want to know he was cheating. Most people
didn’t really want to know the truth.   
    “Yeah,” she seemed relieved.
“That’s what I figured.”
    Emily couldn’t stand the idea
that someone would dump her. No, Emily dumped boys, boys didn’t dump her. Hurt
them before they hurt her. She was worried that was exactly what was happening
with Trevor. I was no psychologist, but I’d seen enough episodes of Oprah to
wonder if her need to be adored had something to do with the fact that her
parents were never around.
    “Still, if he keeps this up, I
just might dump his ass. God, what does he expect? Doesn’t he know how many
people would go out with me?”
    She was arrogant, but she was
right. I’d read enough horny teenage minds to know that 99% of the school’s
male population wanted Emily. The other one percent were gay.
    She followed the road that ran
along the coast, lurching this way and that with the curves. Thank God I didn’t
get motion sickness. The ocean was rough, the winds and weather making the
waves crest into white peaks that looked like snow. It was a volatile life we
led here on the coast, and more than one fisherman drowned every year under the
unrelenting power of the ocean. Despite the danger, I loved the feeling, the
energy that surged from the waves…that secrecy of not knowing what was there
underneath the water.  
    “I swear Kevin was checking me
out the other day.”
    For a moment I thought I’d heard
her wrong. That the roar of the ocean had made me hear something she hadn’t really
said. But no such luck, her thoughts were as clear as my own. My heart
squeezed, even as I forced my smile to remain in place.
    She was looking at the road, but
she was wondering what I was thinking. “If Trevor doesn’t get his shit
together, maybe I’ll go out with Kevin.”
    My heart thundered painfully in
my chest, my palms growing damp. The urge to shout out No! bounced around my skull. But I didn’t move, didn’t dare move
for fear she’d read something in my gestures.
    She slid me a sly glance. “You
don’t still have a crush on him, do you?”
    Yes. “No,” I somehow managed to get out, although my voice sounded
strangled.
    “I didn’t think so.”
    Just like that my good mood
fled. Time to face facts. I’d known she was changing, but most of us were. Half
the senior class was nervous at the thought of graduating and being alone, the
other half were eager to taste freedom. It was an odd year, full of odd
emotions and I’d wanted to ignore the signs that Emily had finally taken a step
fully into the dark side. Mostly, I had ignored her attitude because I didn’t
want to look for new friends this late in the year.
    Morose, I rested my elbow on the
window and gazed at the passing scenery. Less than half a year and I’d be gone.
Another year and another new