Free Wanted by Heidi Ayarbe

side. He strides around the room, pulling brand-name clothes from his closet, tossing them to the floor with Turkish rug–dealer flair. “Everything my family does is for show, with just the right amount of political activism to give us the good Ellison name. It’s like the adult version of high school: say the right things, join the right clubs, and you’re in. It’s just bullshit. So when I make an entire team go bald in patchy spots, inciting an asbestos and other toxic elements investigation in the locker room that costs the school thousands and thousands of dollars, it’s like getting back at the establishment, just nailing them where they’re vulnerable. It makes them more human,” Josh says. “And it makes everybody else feel a little less lame, I guess. Maybe I’m just trying to level the playing field.” Josh looks at me. “Like why you did what you did to Nim.”
    “Nah,” I say. “That wasn’t leveling the playing field. That was revenge.”
    “There was more to it than revenge.”
    He’s right. But I’m doing fine, just getting through today to get to tomorrow. I’ll go to college soon and leave it all behind. I’m not into the causes—Lillian is.
    I sit up, my entire body screaming for sleep. “So on a mission to end the bullshit, huh? It sounds pretty heroic. I suppose I can forgive you for leaking my story to Seth, then.”
    “Michal, you have no idea how lame I felt today.”
    I shrug. I’m almost dizzy from tiredness and look at my watch. “It’s late. So late. I just got comfy and warm and . . . tomorrow’s gonna be a nightmare.”
    “I’ll bring coffee.”
    Josh helps me downstairs. I’m still hobbling, but I don’t feel as bad as I did earlier. He walks me to my car, opens my door, and lays a towel on the bloody driver’s seat. “You okay to drive?”
    “Absolutely.” I inhale, exhale, shivering in the cold car. My car wheezes to life and I put the heater on max, my leg bobbing up and down, waiting for the heater to actually heat. “Thank you,” I say. “Antibullshit division and all.”
    “You’re as far from bullshit as they come.”
    I laugh. “Flattery on someone who’s lost a pint of blood will get you everywhere.”
    “I’m serious. You’re real.”
    “I don’t know how else to be.”
    “You know, I’ve been ‘the new guy’ five times in three years. Suckage Central for most, but I’ve always made a couple of friends, played a prank or two, coasted by. Here, I can tell, it’s gonna be different.”
    “What’s different?”
    “You.” He says it so matter-of-factly.
    Doesn’t he realize I’m drowning here? Treading water just to get by?
    “See you tomorrow, Josh Ellison.”
    “See you in a few hours, Michal Garcia.”
    “Thank you,” I say, and drive home in a haze of tiredness. I don’t even remember opening the front door and getting into bed, falling asleep in my clothes.
    Unexpected friendship in an antibullshit package .

Chapter 10
    MY HEAD FEELS LIKE SOMEBODY
    ripped it off my neck, bowled it for ten frames, then put it back on. The snooze alarm goes off again, and I slam my hand onto the button, then pull myself out of bed and into the bathroom.
    I stand in the shower and muffle a scream when ice-cold pellets stream out of the eco-showerhead. Now is not the time to think about water conservation, so I get out, wrap a towel around me, and sit on the toilet until the entire bathroom is cloaked in steam. When I step back in, hot water streams over me.
    As crappy as I feel, as scared as I felt last night, it all feels okay now. I sit on the edge of the tub, water beading on my arms and legs, feeling weightless. My knee is bluish and swollen. But it doesn’t look like I’ll need to amputate the leg. I wash it and wrap it in fresh gauze.
    “Hey, Mike!” Lillian bangs on the door. “You okay in there?”
    I nod, then think better of it because nodding feels like somebody’s taking a mallet to my frontal