Free All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven Page B

high school gossip. Instead I pick up my bag and tell the teacher I have cramps. I bypass the nurse and climb the stairs to the top floor. I pick the lock to the bell tower. I go only as far as the stairs, where I sit down and, by the light of my phone, read two chapters of
Wuthering Heights
. I’ve given up on Anne Brontë and decided there’s only Emily—unruly Emily, angry at the world.
    “If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.”
    “A mighty stranger,” I say to no one. “You got that right.”

FINCH
Day 9
    By Monday morning, it’s clear that ’80s Finch has to go. For one thing, the picture of him in the
Bartlett Dirt
is not flattering. He looks unnervingly wholesome—I suspect he’s a goody-good, what with all the not smoking and vegetarianism and turned-up collars. And, for two, he just doesn’t feel right to me. He’s the kind of guy who’s probably great with teachers and pop quizzes and who actually doesn’t mind driving his mom’s Saturn, but I don’t trust him not to screw things up with girls. More specifically, I don’t trust him to get anywhere with Violet Markey.
    I meet Charlie at Goodwill during third period. There’s one down by the train station, in an area that used to be nothing but abandoned, burned-out factories and graffiti. Now it’s been “regentrified,” which means it got a new coat of paint and someone decided to pay attention to it.
    Charlie brings Brenda for fashion backup, even though nothing she wears ever matches, something she swears she does on purpose. While Charlie talks up one of the salesgirls, Bren follows me from rack to rack yawning. She flips halfheartedly through hangers of leather jackets. “What exactly are we looking for?”
    I say, “I need to be regentrified.” She yawns again without covering her mouth, and I can see her fillings. “Late night?”
    She grins, bright-pink lips spreading wide. “Amanda Monk had a party Saturday night. I made out with Gabe Romero.” In addition to being Amanda’s boyfriend, Roamer is the biggest prick in school. For some reason, Bren has had a thing for him since freshman year.
    “Will he remember it?”
    Her grin fades a little. “He was pretty wasted, but I left one of these in his pocket.” She holds up a hand and waves her fingers. One of her blue plastic fingernails is missing. “And, just in case, my nose ring.”
    “I thought you looked different today.”
    “That’s just the glow.” She’s more awake now. She claps her hands together and rubs them all mad-scientist-like. “So what are we looking for?”
    “I don’t know. Something a little less squeaky clean, maybe a little sexier. I’m done with the eighties.”
    She frowns. “Is this about what’s-her-name? The skinny chick?”
    “Violet Markey, and she’s not skinny. She has hips.”
    “And a sweet, sweet ass.” Charlie has joined us now.
    “No.” Bren is shaking her head so hard and fast, it looks as if she’s having a seizure. “You don’t dress to please a girl—especially not a girl like that. You dress to please yourself. If she doesn’t like you for you, then you don’t need her.” All of this would be fine if I knew exactly who
me
for
me
was. She goes on: “This is the girl with the blog, the one that actress Gemma Sterling likes? The one who saved her ‘crazy classmate’ from jumping? Well, screw her and her skinny, skinny ass.” Bren hates all girls who aren’t at least a size twelve.
    As she rattles on, about Violet, about Gemma Sterling, about the
Bartlett Dirt
, I don’t say anything else. I suddenly don’t want Bren or Charlie to talk about Violet, because I want to keep her to myself, like the Christmas I was eight—back when Christmases were still good—and got my first guitar, which I named No Trespassing, as in no one could touch it but me.
    Finally, though, I have no choice