Free Wanted by Kym Brunner Page A

Oak Street Beach. Looking down at the pretty scene below should lift my spirits, but instead I feel trapped, like I’m under an overturned cup. I take a deep breath and read Dr. Hanson’s assignment.
    Monroe: Make a list of everything you stand to lose if convicted of felony vandalism. Rank them in order of importance. Bring your list to our next meeting. See you then ~ Dr. Hanson
    My heart sinks. Great. Just what I
don’t
want to do—be reminded of the terrible things that will happen to me if I get in any more trouble this year. I crack my knuckles, heave a big sigh, and let all the negativity flow onto the paper.
    Things That Would Suck If Convicted
I’d have to go to the dumpy local college instead of NYU. Ugh—kill me now!!
I’d get a huge fine, continue on probation, maybe go to jail?
I’d have a criminal record, so employment would be limited to strip clubs and pimps.
No guys except creeps and lowlifes would date, much less marry, a girl who is an ex-con. Bye-bye hot husband, kids, and a French bulldog named Pierre.
    As I reread my list, each option feels like I’m being stabbed in the heart. I’m not sure if the jail part is true or if the judge was just trying to scare me, but either way, it worked. I realize for the millionth time just how stupid and impulsive it was to retaliate against Talia. Of course, if I hadn’t done anything, I’d have zero shreds of self-respect left, so I don’t completely regret what I did. Like my lawyer did for the judge, I review the facts of the case.
    Fact # 1: I agreed to go to Starbucks after school with Pierce Donovan, a hot guy with freckles and a ton of charm, who tried to slide his grubby paw between my legs twenty minutes later, so I called him a dick and left.
    Fact # 2: His apparently
not
-ex-girlfriend Talia found out that we hung out. So for the next four days she yelled “Slut!” really loud every time we passed in the hall and wrote a ton of lies about me online.
    Fact # 3: I told her to shut the hell up and then wrote mean shit about her online too.
    Fact # 4: No, I didn’t consider going to the principal or the social worker.
    Fact # 5: One of my guy friends told Pierce to “settle his bitch down,” but she didn’t settle. On the fourth day after my date with her scumbag boyfriend, she rammed into me in the hall, making my entire Starbucks coffee spill down the front of my shirt.
    Fact # 6: When I walked past her car, I thought of the perfect way to show her that she picked the wrong person to mess with. I keyed BITCH in twelve-inch letters across her trunk.
    Fact # 7: I enjoyed all eight seconds of it.
    Fact # 8: No, I didn’t wipe her red car paint off of my key. Big mistake.
    Fact # 9: Both of us spent hours in the office with school administration, were warned not to even look in each other’s direction, and had privileges taken away—mine worse than hers.
    Fact # 10: The douche and the bitch got back together and lived crappily ever after.
    I fold up my list, deciding I’d better grab the slugs now too and stick both things into my purse before I forget. When I pick my pants up off the floor so I can grab the slugs, I hesitate. After I return these bullets to the safe, Dad will put them into one of his display cases and that’ll be the end of the mind movies. As horrifying as some of the events were, I have to admit they were also pretty cool—especially from a director’s standpoint. Shouldn’t I experience just one more, observing from a purely cinematic standpoint?
    I pause, as if waiting for someone to disagree with me.
    When no one does, I take a deep breath. There’s no time like the present to witness the past. Bracing myself for some horrific scene to follow, I slip my hand into the pocket, making contact with the slugs. My bedroom swirls into a blurry cocktail of whites and grays, followed by a graphic scene that bursts into full color before my