Trade Me Read Free

going to cry. Not in front of everyone, and especially not in front of Blake. “None of you have any idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know what it’s like to go into a store and use EBT. You don’t know what it’s like to slink into a Salvation Army and hope that there will be something that will let you fit in with classmates whose weekly allowance would feed your family for two months.” I glare at Blake again.
    Blake looks away. On the plus side—and this is not a huge plus—it looks like I won’t have to worry about Blake smiling at me anymore.
    “And that’s why this issue is personal,” I say. “We’re invisible to you, except when you want to tell us what to do. You know what, Blake? Nobody here would care about a word you said if your family was on food stamps. Try trading lives with me. You couldn’t manage it, not for two weeks.”
    He looks away from me. The tips of his ears turn pink, though, and his lips press into an angry line.
    Nobody is looking at me, for that matter. They’re avoiding eye contact like I’m some kind of feral dog that needs to be put down. And that’s when I realize precisely how many people are witnessing this. How many of my fellow students are tapping out distress signals on the phones they’re cradling surreptitiously on their laps.
    I can almost feel the Facebook posts springing up around me.
    ZOMG. Some nobody just bitched out Blake Reynolds.
    LOL did u hear she was on food stamps?
    I look down at my stained sweater.
She was dressed like a homeless person. I shit you not.
    It’s going to be all over the internet in a matter of minutes.
    “Are you done, Miss Chen?” Fred asks sarcastically.
    I’m almost hyperventilating in panic, but then I realize how ridiculous I’m being. The one good thing about being a Tina Chen at Berkeley is that I’m indistinguishable from any of the other dozens of Tina Chens around. I can be as inappropriate as I want. I’m not googleable. I bow my head, letting my hair fall around my face like a curtain.
    Someone else’s hand is in the air. “I think that’s really unfair to Blake,” someone up front pipes up. “We all know how hard he works, and how hard his dad works. They’ve definitely earned everything they have.”
    Fine. They don’t want to acknowledge me as a person. Nothing’s really changed. I don’t have the time or the energy to care. But apparently, the class has turned into a referendum on Blake, and now everyone has to have their say.
    “I really like the tap-to-call feature on my Tempest,” another girl puts in. “It’s genius. Blake deserves everything he has.”
    It goes on like that for a few minutes. I take copious notes throughout the entire debacle.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck shit shit shit shit fuck fuck fuck,
I write in my notebook in my neatest cursive. Everyone—Fred included—falls all over themselves to say how great Blake is. And then the tone shifts.
    “I think
some people
need to stop blaming others for where they are. If
some people
stopped wasting energy on playing the victim, and started doing something instead, they’d get a lot farther in life.”
    I hunch in on myself, preparing for even worse.
    “Hey,” Blake says sharply.
    He’s just two feet away from me. I’m not going to look at him.
    But his tone is icy. “This has gone on long enough. Come on, guys. Enough of this crap. She’s right. We all know I won the nepotism lottery. I’m not an expert, and if I said something stupid, I’m glad she was willing to point it out.”
    Silence falls in response. At the front of the class, Fred clears his throat, maybe now remembering that he has a job besides savaging students. “Right. Let’s…uh, let’s move on.”
    And I? I do not want to feel grateful to Blake. I hate that nobody even recognized me as a person until Blake spoke up. And when I tilt my head to the side… I hate that he looks at me, that he gives me a silent nod, like he’s granted me his permission