Free What's Broken Between Us by Alexis Bass Page A

listening to Dawn rant about bio, imagining what it’ll be like when I’m there with her and far, far away from here, and all this.
    “In Mr. Scott’s defense, remember eighth grade, language arts. . . .”
    That’s right. Before Mr. Scott started teaching sophomore English and senior Consumer Economics, he was at Millbrook Middle School. I remember the fight, clear as day. Henry stole the poem I’d written for class—he’d ripped one of my earlier drafts from my notebook when I wasn’t looking, and as soon as Mr. Scott asked for volunteers to share theirs, Henry raised his hand. I turned seven shades of pink as Henry read my poor attempt at rhyming in an ode to Miguel Lowery—the boy that everyone had a crush on in eighth grade—to the entire class. If the class had known it was my poem, making the Miguel connection would have been easy, as not many other eighth-grade boys were tall enough to “reach the stars” or had hair that was both “as long as the Mississippi River” and “the color of ravens.”But no one laughed. Go figure, my lame poem spun with a British accent actually sounded profound.
    “It’s about being homesick,” someone guessed.
    “It’s about being left behind.”
    “It’s about his dead grandfather.”
    Grace was in the class too. “It’s a love poem about a dude,” she said, and grinned with delight, given how much of a fuss all the girls in our class made over Henry.
    I walked up to Mr. Scott’s desk first thing when class was over, in what I suppose some might call a huff, and demanded that Henry apologize to me in front of the whole class for taking credit for my poem. It turned out that the only thing worse than everyone finding out about my crush on Miguel was Henry taking the credit for a poem everyone actually liked.
    The next day Henry said he was sorry, admitted to his crime, and read aloud his own poem, which was without a doubt about soccer and nothing deeper. Grace was visibly disappointed by this revelation.
    It’s all storm clouds between us in the hallway now, with thunder too loud to talk over. Because we both remember Grace sitting there with her arms crossed over her desk, her shoulders rolling forward as she sighed, listening to Henry’s confession. “We can go back,” I say, and my voices breaks a bit.
    “I’ll go,” Henry says. “I’ll tell him you’re fine, it’s all cleared up, and that you’ll be returning soon.”
    “It’s okay. I only left to call Dawn. I can do it later.”
    We walk back to class slowly. He stays to the right side of thehall and I stay to the left.
    T EXT MESSAGE TO D AWN, NEVER SENT, T UESDAY, 8:30 P.M.
    She was there, and now she’s not. She played tetherball at recess, I played tag. But she was there. She was on the volleyball team, I ran track. We were both in choir; she sang alto, I was a soprano. She was at ragers on Saturday nights. I was with you, most likely at the movies. But around seven at night, when we were getting ready to leave the house, stocking up on candy from the stash Mumsy thought was a secret, and Jonathan and Sutton were rounding up Jose, Jim, and Jack, she was there.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
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CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
    J onathan is standing in the kitchen, soaked in sweat and chugging water, when I come downstairs at six thirty a.m. on Wednesday morning. This is usually the time I’m getting ready to roll out of bed. It’s so early, I’m surprised to find Jonathan awake, let alone standing in the kitchen with Standard Dad, who’s leaning against the counter, buttering his toast, getting ready to leave for work.
    “What happened to you?” I ask Jonathan. Detoxing, is what I’d guess, if these were the old days. But he’s got a sparkle in his eyes, and the edges of his mouth aren’t pointing down like they normally are when he’s getting the booze out of his system. Endorphins are most likely