Twisted Read Free

kind of thinking was scary in a whole different, definitely less fun way.
    Legs or no legs, Ed wasn’t sure that any stunt he had pulled in the past had terrified him as much as the one he was about to attempt.
    He stared at the classroom door, and the blood rushing through his brain sounded as loud as a subway train pulling up to the platform.
    He was going to tell Gaia Moore that he loved her.
    He was really going to do it. If he didn’t faint first.
    Ed had been infatuated with Gaia since he first saw her in the school hallway. He was half smitten as soon as they spoke and all the way gone within a couple of days.
    Since then, Ed and Gaia had become friends—or at least they had come as close to being friends as Gaia’s don’t-get-close-to-me forcefield would allow. To tell Gaia how he really felt would mean risking the relationship they already shared. Ed was horrified by the thought of losing contact with Gaia, but he was determined to take that chance.
    For once, he was going to see what it was like to be fearless.
Sour Seventeen
    ONE IDIOT AN HOUR. GAIA FIGURED that if they would let her beat up one butthead per class, it would make the day go oh-so-smoothly. She would get the nervous energy out of her system, add a few high points to her dull-as-a-bowling-ball day, and by the time the final bell rang, the world would have eight fewer losers . All good things.
    It might also help her keep her mind off Sam Moon. Sam, whose life she had saved more than once. Sam, who was oblivious to her existence. Sam, who had the biggest bitch this side of Fifth Avenue for a girlfriend but didn’t seem to notice.
    And still Gaia couldn’t stop thinking about him. Daydreaming her way through each and every class. If her teachers had tested her on self-torture , she would have gotten an A.
    Gaia trudged out of her third-period classroom and shouldered her way through the clogged hallway,her cruise control engaged. Every conscious brain cell was dedicated to the ongoing problem of what to do about her irritating and somewhat embarrassing Sam problem.
    It was like a drug problem, only slightly less messy.
    It was bad enough that Sam was with Heather. Even worse was Heather getting credit for everything Gaia did. Gaia had nearly lost her life saving Sam from a kidnapper. She had gone crazy looking for him. And then Heather had stepped in at the last second and looked like the big hero when her total expended effort was equal to drying her fingernails.
    Not to mention the fact that the kidnappers had gotten away after they spent an entire day ordering her around as if she were a toy poodle.
    Gaia suddenly realized she was biting her lip so badly that it was about to bleed . Whenever she thought about how the nameless, faceless men in black had used her, she got the uncontrollable urge to do serious violence to something. Then, of course, her thoughts turned directly to Heather.
    And the fact that Heather had sex with Sam. And the fact that Heather had taken credit for saving Sam. And the fact that Heather got to hold hands with Sam and kiss Sam and talk to Sam and—
    Gaia came to a stop in front of her locker and kicked it hard, denting the bottom of the door. Acouple of Gap girls turned to stare, so Gaia kicked it again. The Gap girls scurried away.
    She snarled at her vague reflection in the battered door. In the dull metal she was only an outline. That’s all she was to Sam, too. A vague shadow of nothing much.
    For a few delusional days Gaia had thought Sam might be the one. The one to break her embarrassing record as the only unkissed seventeen-year-old on planet Earth. Maybe even the one to turn sex from hypothesis into reality. But it wasn’t going to happen.
    There wasn’t going to be any sex. There was never going to be any kissing. Not with Sam. Not ever.
    Gaia yanked open the door of her locker, tossed in the book she was carrying, and randomly took out another without bothering to look