Free Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes Page B

just to keep me from crying.
    But that doesn’t seem to be happening.
    What is happening, right this second, is much worse. Brad Kline is stumbling up the stairs drunkenly looking for his girlfriend, who is ten feet away, boning his brother.
    What to do, what to do?
    Brad Kline is captain of the football team, so tripping him on the stairs might actually result in the varsity football team never making it to State. Such an event would be the closest thing to the nuclear holocaust in these parts, owing particularly to everyone’s vicariously living lame parents, and would probably end up with me being sent to a high-security prison where I would be constantly violated by girls with names like Spike.
    So, I can’t trip him.
    Also, it’s his birthday.
    Now he is lumbering straight toward me and is about to crash right into that room and, ladies and gentlemen, that is not going to be a pretty sight. Or maybe it would be a porny sight. But whatever sight it is it’s probably going to lead to a Cain-and-Abel fight to the death, using knives, rapiers, or perhaps just fisticuffs. They were both on the wrestling team at one point so there is a good chance it will look a little like Homo City, whatever happens.
    Before thinking it out in any way, I grab Brad Kline by the jersey, throw him up against the wall, and shove my tongue down his throat like I am a sex-deprived nymphomaniac just back from an island of frogs. Brad is utterly confused but not so confused that he doesn’t kiss me back. It is here that I would like to state that Brad Kline is a terrible kisser. It really is like his tongue is a lizard that is trying desperately to eat everything inside my mouth and then slither down my throat. Gross!
    It occurs to me during this lizard-slithery kiss that this could backfire mightily and Becky could actually get mad at me for protecting her slutty self in the back room with Brad’s brother.
    So now what?
    It’s here that I decide that the best thing to do is pass out. Which I do. And how. Yes, folks, it’s official. I am now lying on the ground as if someone hit me over the head with a hammer.
    Chaos. Anarchy.
    Frogs are falling from the sky.
    Suddenly the big drama at the party is that Anika, Becky’s second-best friend, is blacked out cold and oh my God, what if she doesn’t wake up, we heard she’s a vampire anyway and now maybe she is part of the undead!
    Now everyone is saying we should call an ambulance, no, we should not call an ambulance, yes, we have to call an ambulance, no, we can’t, we can, we can’t.
    If I opened my eyes, which I want to do so badly it’s eating me alive, I would see a circle of heads above me, pondering, debating, squinting. All I want is for that damn back door to open and Becky to get the hell out here so my grand charade can come to an end.
    But, instead what happens is Jared Kline.
    Yes, THE Jared Kline.
    Next thing I know, Jared Kline is picking me up, like he just married me, and carrying me down the stairs to the library. The crowd parts like the Red Sea at the sight of The Great One carrying this broken-winged bird down the stairs and into the dark wooden den, where he is obviously going to save my life by issuing CPR and turning me into a fairy princess.
    No one is playing opera, but they might as well be.
    Everyone tries to clamber into the room with us but Jared sets me down on his dad’s giant desk, turns around, and slams the door. As I open one eyelid to peek at who is outside looking in, I see something that fills me with dread.
    Dread!
    No, it’s not an ambulance, or the cops, or even a horde of drooling body snatchers. It’s Becky Vilhauer, standing there, looking at me like I am dead meat.
    Which, let’s face it, I probably am.

eighteen
    â€œH ey, hey . . . are you okay?”
    Now’s the part where I have to pretend I am waking up from my blacked-out slumber.
    My sister Lizzie used to put us