Free My Side by Norah McClintock Page B

ask myself, What did you expect?

Chapter Three
    This is what I remember.
    I am holding the note in my hand and thinking, No way, this can’t be true. Then I think, But it has to be. I know that handwriting. I know that signature. It is true. Now all I have to do is forget how nervous I am and follow what it says. I tell myself that Cinderella was probably nervous about going to that ball. But she went anyway. Her heart probably fluttered when the prince saw her and made his way over to her to ask her to dance. But she danced anyway.
    I’m no Cinderella, and John is no prince. He’s just John, the guy I’ve been crazy about ever since I can remember. The guy who just got cuter and more popular year after year and who never once seemed to notice that I was anything but the daughter of his mom’s curling partner until, well, until he looked at me from across the room and smiled.
    At me.
    Later, he asked if he could borrow my notes after he’d missed class for a dentist’s appointment. My notes, not Kayla’s or Jen’s or Shayna’s. All of this happened after he and Kayla broke up.
    And then…I couldn’t believe it was happening, but it was. The doorbell rang, and I opened it, and it was John. He had a measuring cup in his hand. When he saw it was me, not my mother, he smiled again and said, Addie , as if he were surprised—pleasantly surprised. His mom had sent him over to borrow a cup of milk, but it took him forever to get around to telling me that. Instead he asked me if I had any plans for spring break and said he had been planning to go away for a week, but that was before he broke up with Kayla and now he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. It wasn’t until his mother shouted from his house across the street to ask what was taking so long that he seemed to remember what he had come for. His face turned red, and he spluttered a little. I gave him the milk and he hurried home.
    The next thing I knew, there was a note on my locker.
    It was from him.
    From John.
    It asked me to meet him.
    So, feeling like Cinderella and with butterflies in my stomach, there I am, clutching the note and walking away from school. I glance around, wondering if anyone is watching. For once, I want someone to be watching. But no one is. And even if they were, even if the whole school were staring at me, no one would have any idea what I was doing or where I was going, because I haven’t told anyone. I wish I could. I want everyone to know that Addie Murch is on her way to meet John Branksome, at his request. I especially want Jen and Shayna to know. And double especially, Kayla.
    But there is no one around.
    That doesn’t stop me from strutting like one of those boys who wants everyone to know how cool he is. I strut across the schoolyard. I strut through the gap in the fence. I strut along the rocky little path that leads through the woods, past the new subdivision and out into the conservation area. I keep right on strutting as I follow the path to where it forks and goes deeper into the bush, taking you, if you follow it far enough, to where kids hang out for parties. I strut past the party zone and the big blackened circle with burned wood in the center, and cinder blocks and tree stumps all around it, where kids sit and drink or make out or whatever they do at their parties. I keep going, glancing at the note to make sure I haven’t taken a wrong turn.
    I find myself in the smallest clearing I have ever seen. It’s as if someone planted a ring of trees in a tiny circle, and I’m standing in the middle of them, listening, waiting, breathing hard from all the strutting.
    That’s when it happens.
    Twigs snap. Something rushes at me.
    Something is pulled down over my head, covering my eyes, my nose, my mouth, my ears. When I open my mouth to scream, whatever is blanketing my head gets sucked into my mouth. I panic and fight for breath. The material closes around