Free Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers Page B

Al’s Convenience Store and everything stops. Like time. Everything.
    He looks terrible, gaunt. A male anorexic. Even from across the road, I can see the hollows of his cheekbones, and he’s slouched over and pale and his hair’s longer than he’d ever let it grow last year, like really long, like hanging-in-his-eyes long, and I don’t understand why he’s back. Why is he back and how soon before he leaves again?
    “What are you staring at?” Jake asks, following my gaze.

    “ Becky .”
    I grab her by the arm and pull her away from her group of parasite-girls, the ones that live to bask in her reflected popularity because they haven’t got a hope in hell of being popular themselves. It’s funny because that’s who Becky used to be.
    “What the fuck, Parker?” She wrenches her arm from my grip and takes one look at my face. “This better not be about Chris or that stupid cheer, I’m warning you. You’ll be thrilled to know we’re not doing it—”
    “Becky, shut up. Is Evan back?”
    “Evan?”
    “Yeah. Is he back?”
    She stares at me.
    “Goddammit, Becky, did you forget to turn your brain on today?”
    “Don’t talk to me like that!” At least she knows when she’s being insulted. Chris sidles up and snakes his arm around her waist. “I don’t know if he’s back or not.”
    She’s so useless. I press Chris’s math binder into his free hand.
    “Thanks,” I tell him. “Hey, do you know if Evan’s back or not?”
    “What was that?” Becky asks Chris. “Why did Parker have your binder?”
    “It’s just math homework, Becky,” he says vaguely. “Is who back?”
    “Ev-an,” I say slowly, and Chris gets this surprised look on his face—his eyebrow goes up and everything. He didn’t know.
    “ Evan? Haven’t seen him. Have you seen him?”
    The lightbulb goes on over Becky’s head.
    “You let her copy your math homework?!”
    She totally screeches it. I’ve always had the worst urge to tell her about how we used to make fun of her at the squad sleepovers she couldn’t make. We’d up our voices nine octaves and say the most inanely stupid things because that’s Becky for you. She was the most expendable member of the squad and now she’s, like, Parker Lite.
    She owes her magical senior year to me and she knows it.
    “We’re not supposed to be enabling Parker like this!” Becky says. What an ingrate. “That’s what Grey and Henley called it—enabling! She uses you and you get nothing in return—”
    “Oh, he got something,” I assure her.
    “Parker, shut up—” Chris turns bright red and since he’s one of those people who like to make sure they do everything to the best of their abilities, especially the stupid stuff, he blows it: “You weren’t supposed to say anything!”
    Becky does a quadruple take and figures out what that means to the best of her abilities. She’s probably decided we’ve had sex. Close enough.
    “Fuck both of you,” she spits, and storms off.
    Jeez. Chris closes his eyes and brings a hand to his temple.
    “So anyway,” I say, “I was just walking down Victoria Street yesterday and I think I saw Evan outside of the—”
    “Shut up, Parker,” Chris says, strained. “Just shut up.”
    He chases after Becky.
    We come downstairs looking like two people who’ve spent the last thirty minutes having sex. Chris insists on it because the basketball team has to know he’s getting laid, so his hair is sticking up all over the place and the buttons on my shirt are strategically undone. Like any of the wasters on the team will notice, never mind the fact it’s going to be the first thing he tells them .
    The house is filling up with people from school. I spot a few girls from the squad, but they won’t look at me because of what happened at practice earlier .
    Chris grabs some of his buddies and gets to work on the tunes. In the minutes before the sounds of the latest popular white rapper start playing, I wind my way through the house and