Free Nothing Like You by Lauren Strasnick

whole body going stiff.
     
    “No! No, I mean, you’re just so put together. I didn’t think you’d be so nice, is all.”
     
    She relaxed. “Oh. Thanks. I think.”
     
    I can’t explain why I suddenly loved her so much. It’s not like we’d reached deep inside each other’s souls or hearts or whatever. I still didn’t know anything about her.
     
    Saskia took out a piece of paper and scribbled something down. “Here.”
     
    “Hmm?”
     
    “You should call me sometime.”
     
    “Call you?” I was confused. Why would I possibly call her?
     
    The bell rang. She handed me the little slip of loose leaf. “My number. If you wanna hang out ever. Go to the beach or something.” She stood up.
     
    “Yeah, sure. Okay.” I stood up too, stunned, watching as she pushed her desk against the wall before waving quicklyand circling out into the corridor. I fingered the little slip of loose leaf between my thumb and pinkie finger, then slipped it into my back pocket before swinging my desk back into place.
     
    Tap tap tap.
     
    I sat up and stared groggily at Paul’s face, which looked to me as if it were hanging in midair, floating around without a body.
     
    I rubbed my eyes, then pressed a palm to my bedroom window. Paul kissed the glass.
     
    “What’re you doing here?” I asked. He shook his head and plugged his ears.
I can’t hear you,
he mouthed. So I got out of bed and tiptoed down the hall, past sleeping Jeff, and Harry, who was up, wagging his tail. I cracked the door. “It’s Monday,” I whispered. He pushed past me, worming his way inside. “What’re you doing here?” I asked. He put a finger to his lips and spun me around, pushing me back down the hall toward the bedroom, slipping my shirt over my head and then off with my pajama bottoms. “Are you still mad at me?” I asked, shoving my bedroom door shut with my elbow. He clamped a hand over my mouth and went back to undoing the buttons on his fly. “Mad?” he asked, kissing me again, sliding his free hand along the waistband of my orange cotton underwear, sending a warm jolt up my spine.
     
    He pushed me backward onto the bed and bit my top lip. “Ow.”
     
    “Did that hurt?”
     
    I touched my throbbing mouth, then shook my head.
     
    “Good.”
     
    Afterward, when we were through, we lay there like statues. I fell asleep for a bit, then woke up to some rustling around in my bed.
     
    “Paul?” I heard my bedroom door click shut. I sat up. He was gone. So I got up on my knees and looked out the window. Paul was jogging down my driveway to his car, which he always parked on the street by our mailbox so no one would hear him coming and going.
     
    I walked over to my stereo, slipped Neil Diamond into the CD player, and skipped to track nine. The first few bars of “Holly Holy” played softly as I fell backward onto my bed. Paul always spent the night. Always. He’d never left before without a quiet kiss or sweet good-bye.
     
    I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to cry. I tried and I tried until finally, I fell back to sleep, sometime around four thirty, about an hour and a half before I had to get up for school.
     

Chapter 16
     
    The psychic called back .
     
    It was after lunch on the way to Calc when my cell rang.
     
    “Is this Holly?”
     
    My hands shook, so stupid, I don’t know why they were shaking, but I pressed the phone close to my ear and said, “Yeah, this is me.”
     
    “Frank Gellar.” He sounded exactly like he had on his outgoing voice mail message. “You wanted to set up an appointment for a reading?”
     
    I stopped moving and backed myself into the hallway wall. I had an immediate impulse to check my boobs for lumps but resisted the urge. “Yeah. Yes. I have, um … well, you’re, like, a medium, right?” I pulled a notepad and pen from my backpack. “Like, I have someone that maybe Iwant to talk to—could you do that? Help me talk to that person?”
     
    “I can certainly try.” He