What's Meant To Be Read Free Page A

like his eyes can’t meet mine.
    “Yeah? Is that why I haven’t heard from you?” I ask him. I figure there’s no point in holding anything back, so I add, “I saw you this morning, and I thought you saw me, but maybe you didn’t.”
    “No,” Austin says and for the first time he’s looking at me the way he did over the summer. “Ashley, I saw you.”
    “Then what happened?” I ask him now, and my eyes are pleading with him.
    Asking him to just stop being weird, and to go back to how we used to be over the summer. When we were best friends and it was so simple and not complicated. He opens his mouth but before he can say anything he’s knocked forward by what seems to be a large object someone has thrown on his back. It takes me a second to realize it’s a girl, not an object. A girl with long dark brown hair and a dress much too short to be jumping on anyone like that.
    Once she gets off his back and wraps her tiny arms around his waist, I realize it’s Melissa Petron. Melissa Petron, who’s so tiny she makes me look like a giant. Melissa Petron who’s on the varsity cheerleading squad and almost too perfect to handle. Melissa Petron who has hated me ever since seventh grade when I got student of the month over her.
    “Oh,” she says, looking me up and down. “Were you, um, in the middle of something?”
    I want to say that yes, actually we are in the middle of something here, like trying to figure out why someone I thought was my best friend wont talk to me.
    Austin, however, seems to be at a loss for words. And after what seems like hours, I realize he isn’t going to say anything.
    “No,” I say, “we weren’t.” And then I turn on my heel and start to stomp away.
    “Ashley.” Austin’s voice echoes through the gym above all the talking and so I hear him loud and clear, but when I turn around to meet his gaze, Melissa’s rolling her eyes and pulling him by the hand after her, and he’s letting her.
    I stomp up the bleachers and take a seat at the very top. Since it’s pretty clear I’m not going to find anyone that I know in here, I figure it’s better to be away from everyone so I can be miserable alone.
    I feel angry, very angry. Angry at Melissa and her stupid black dress.
    Angry at myself for not telling her to go away. But mostly I’m angry at Austin.
    Austin for not saying one word to me that made it seem like he cared even a little bit about our friendship.
    All the things we told one another over the summer, all the things we did together, and it’s that easy for him to pretend it never happened. Like we were never even friends at all. Well fine, if that’s how he feels, then screw him. Austin who? Never even heard of him. La la la, don’t need anyone but myself.
    Our gym teacher, Mr. White, who I had last year and is actually really nice, calls the gym to order and everyone becomes quiet as he starts to call off names for attendance. I concentrate hard on listening to every name he says, praying that I’ll recognize a name or a face that I somehow missed in the crowd. I lean forward a little bit and catch a glimpse of Melissa and Austin sitting together a few rows away from me. I roll my eyes and look away. Good thing I don’t care about him at all or anything or I might be upset right now. La.
    Mr. White spends the rest of the period going over all the basics (proper dress code, make up classes, sick days, blah blah blah). Then he has the boys come down and fill out a little blue card for him to keep on file and gives them a bunch of forms to bring home for their parents.
    After the boys are done and go back up to their seats, the girls start to file down, one by one. There’s about thirty of us, and we’re handed clipboards and pencils with the same blue forms on them. I find a spot on the far wall and start to fill out my form so I can go back to my seat.
    I’m just starting to print my name when Melissa smacks her clipboard down hard on the wall next to me, much too