Free Dream Smashers by Angela Carlie Page A

and
backpack for me until the bus squeaked and then psshed to a stop.
It seemed like a giant banana until the doors opened, and then it
seemed like a jungle. All kinds of noise escaped from those opened
doors, none of it sounding the least bit safe. Screeches, giddy
laughter, yelling, crying, sneezing, coughing, all struck me as
terrifying and crazy.
    Gramps nudged me toward the gaping mouth of
the bus. I tried to stay brave while he threaded my arms through
the backpack straps and handed me my lunch box. “Chin up, kiddo.
You’re going to meet some of the best friends of your life on this
bus.” He winked at me, giving me superhero strength.
    I climbed up the stairs, turning at the top
to wave at him before the doors slammed shut. I found a seat next
to a window and held the fire behind my eyes and down my throat
from escaping. The bus moved forward.
    Two houses down, a girl my age with a
sprinkler of hair plopped on top of her head, scurried from a
house. Her arms flapped in the air, signaling the bus to stop.
    Air somehow forced itself over my vocal
chords and out my mouth. “Stop!”
    The driver jerked the bus to a stop and
opened the doors for the girl.
    The girl, out of breath, slapped her body
down next to me. “That was close!” She opened her lunch box, the
very same lunch box that I held on my lap—a pink plastic Barbie
box. Her box didn’t hold items of nourishment though. Instead it
held glittery lip-balms of every flavor imaginable. Grams never had
the extra money to buy me lip balms when I asked each week at the
grocery store. And the girl had an entire lunch box full. We’ve
been friends forever since that day.
     
    ***
     
    “You can call me Angel for short,” Angelica
says and pops a piece of pink gum into her mouth.
    “You want to hang out sometime?” I ask before
thinking. It seems the natural thing to ask. After all, she is
pretty nice and talkative and stuff.
    Angel’s mouth stops mid chew and then she
puckers her lips and her eyes widen. “Sure,” she says, but it drags
on longer than a normal one syllable word. “But, not today because
I’ve got a thing to go to.”
    “Yeah, uh, me too.” Blood rushes to my face.
“Maybe another day.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
     
    The clock moves slowly. Tick. Three o’clock
can’t get here any sooner. Tock. Only ten long minutes until Autumn
graces Evan with her presence, until he sees her beautiful face
again.
    Tick. His hands haven’t stopped shaking,
clammy, and his heart hasn’t rested since Friday night. She lingers
in his dreams, day and night, tantalizing and surreal. Tock. It’s
pretty bad when the pastor at church calls you out as being a
space-case. Caleb won’t let that one go and Evan will probably hear
about it until the end of days.
    Evan taps the brake and the car comes to a
stop one block from her house, the perfect vantage point to watch
and wait without seeming stalker-like. Tick. It’s not necessarily
being a stalker when they have a planned date. He’s just
early—eagerly early. It’s not even a date. So really, he shouldn’t
get his hopes up. Tock.
    Such a hot girl probably has hundreds of guys
waiting for the opportunity to ask her out. Tick. Maybe she’s
humoring him, or just interested in helping the homeless. Evan can
be persuasive when it comes to volunteer work, when recruiting
people to help others. Tock. That’s probably the only reason she
agreed to this—not to see him.
    Evan’s not the only one early. Up ahead, a
beautiful figure emerges from the fog walking alongside her bike.
She walks with long strides through the gate to the yard and drops
her bike against the pole on the front porch.
    Evan’s pulse quickens and leaves him
light-headed. If he pulls up to the house now, this early, it might
seem like he’s too eager. He should wait. Maybe even wait ‘til a
few minutes after three.
    He holds his breath and releases the brake. A
few minutes early won’t hurt.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    OMG. He’s here. I