Free Between These Lines (A Young Adult Novel) by Jennifer Murgia

will go.”
    I
gritted my teeth. “You don’t deserve her.”
    “And
you think you do?” Still in my face, I half expected him to explode with the
lip I was giving him, but instead, he took it, and I wondered what I could say to
mark I had gone too far.
    “If
you back out, I’ll tell everyone how you hurt her. You get what I’m saying? And
it won’t look very good when I tell my uncle you supplied Ty to do a few
papers. Oh, and I’ll even go one step further,” he continued with pleasure.
“I’ll tell Evie your secret.”
    “I
don’t have any secrets,” I whipped back, recalling last night’s conversation in
the car.
    Shane
cocked his head to the side, sizing me up. “Don’t you?” He let a few seconds
tick away.
    “I
know why Evie likes you so much,” he walked around me. “You’re that quiet,
rebellious type, the one who avoids everyone like they’re the plague. If they
only knew what you hid,
    Chase.
If they only knew how much you wanted to be right where I am a few years ago,
how you insisted your parents race you to my house before anyone else showed
up.” He stopped in front of me, nose to nose, and waited for my reaction.
“That’s how the accident happened, isn’t it? You were in such a hurry. But
let’s just admit what really happened. You caused the accident, didn’t
you, Chase? Because you were so desperate to be me. ”
    I
glared back at him.
    “Oh,
sure, Evie will pity you. She’ll take you under her wing and try to nurse you
back to health, because that’s the type of girl she is.”
    “She
already knows about the accident.”
    This
made him pause for a moment, but he still went on. “But when she sees your
other secret . . .” he grabbed my collar, “the one you hide every day, you
won’t be so intriguing to her anymore. You’ll disgust her.”
    Abruptly,
Shane stepped away from me as if I was a living disease. The smirk was gone
from his face and replaced by absolute repugnance. He pulled on the handle of
the door and opened it. “Everything comes with a price, Chase, don’t forget
that.”  

 

 
 
 
    Chapter Twelve
    Evie

 
    “You can’t
hide in the bathroom all day,” I told myself after slipping away from Tara for
the second time this morning. For once I wished I’d taken Shane seriously and
stayed home, but when I awoke this morning to find the bright purple
discoloration across my cheek, I couldn’t ignore the defiant swell surging
inside me, and I decided to go to school anyway. I had been growing my hair out
for about a month and was sure it was long enough to hide the left side of my
face.
    I
hoped.
    My
father had always given me advice about how to say no, how not to become a
doormat, how to end a relationship when a boy goes too far. I used to roll my
eyes and listen as my mother inevitably chimed her two cents in, saying how we
were avoiding all that by sending me to a school that could only allow good
breeding past its doors.
    The
thing was, I really don’t believe Shane meant to hurt me. But every time I
questioned it, even the slightest bit, my dad’s voice echoed inside my head,
nagging me with his most important warning— if a guy does it once, he’s
certainly going do it again . And that was becoming something I couldn’t
guarantee these days.
    So
that was the real reason I decided to come to school today—to stand up
for myself, to stand up against Shane, and it looked like it was going to work
until I stepped off the bus and felt everyone trying to figure out why I wore
my hair differently. That’s when I decided to skip going to my locker and hide
in the bathroom instead.
    “Took
you long enough,” huffed Tara. A day without talking to each other seemed to
have gone by unnoticed. She was chewing gum and finishing up a homework paper,
while trying to walk, when I rejoined her in the hallway. I was glad to see she
didn’t notice anything different.
    “There’s
Shane and the guys, want to stop?” Tara asked as her eyes