Free Circle of Stones by Suzanne Alyssa Andrew Page B

commute.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œWell, I listen to music with my headphones to block out all the stupid chatting.”
    â€œThat’s skimming, Mr. Uh —”
    â€œAaron.”
    â€œI need you to do a close reading of the book.” She lifts up her hardcover version and holds it in front of me like a child’s picture book. I watch as she slowly turns through the pages. It’s a mess of underlining and scrawls in different ink. It looks so personal she might as well be exposing her internal organs. “If you want to do well in my course, you have to learn to mark up your books.”
    I stare at the book and nod. I’m no longer turned on. I’m paying attention. Weird. Moreland looks at her overlarge silver watch and makes a shooing motion at me with the back of her hand.
    â€œIf you’re interested in a less insulting grade, re-read it in a quiet place with no distractions and mark it up. Then come back and we’ll talk.” I feel her watching me as I fumble to gather up my paper, book, backpack, and hoodie.
    I head to the subway in a daze. I’m already halfway to Mississauga when I realize Moreland didn’t go critical about my writing skills. All I’ve got to do is read the book again and underline stuff. Write in the margins. I can do that.
    Subway in rush hour, GO train delay, forever wait for the bus. I endure it. Suburb maze, stink of backyard barbecue, deathwish kids on skateboards. My parents’ house is the only one on the block that needs a paint job. I open the front door and peer into the dim. My dad’s already sitting on the sofa in the front room with his beer, watching Jeopardy reruns.
    â€œThat girl Ilana called for you,” he says to me. “What is 1976?” he adds to the TV. “She says it’s really important this time, so I gave her your cell number again. Oh, Science for $400. Daily Double!”
    â€œYeah, whatever.” I make sure to hang my coat on the hook by the door and take off my new Timberland boots so my mom doesn’t yell. “Just keep telling her I’m not home.”
    â€œWell you weren’t,” my dad says, still staring at his latest prized plasma screen. “What is hydrogen?”
    â€œWell, even if I am, tell her I’m not.” For an otherwise healthy guy my dad watches way too much TV. When he first got this new flat screen, he booked off work for two whole days just to watch it. Guess when you’re a self-employed chiropractor you can do whatever you want. I could handle that lifestyle. It’s obviously way easier than trying to be an artist. Too bad I don’t have any science credits. I’d never get into chiro school.
    Not that I want to wind up like my dad. The man never does anything.
    â€œSupper’s in the fridge,” Dad says. “Mom left a burger for you. Salad, too. Oh, what are T-cells? Yes!”
    I sigh and head to the kitchen. I already know it’s not a real burger. My mom’s been taking yoga classes after whatever she does at her downtown government job. That means natural this and organic that and a lot of tofu. Our dog Stan, a tired old basset hound, is sprawled out in front of his empty food bowl. He barely lifts his head when I walk in. When I try and feed him the soy patty he sniffs at it and looks away. I throw the patty into the compost bin and grab a bag of vegetable chips. I head downstairs into the basement.
    My room, if you can call it that, with its half-finished walls and exposed wiring, is at the back of the house, beyond a jumble of broken appliances, old sports equipment, and a stack of televisions. You can trace the years with our failed consumer goods. Elliptical trainer, dead Discmans. Cellphones the size of shoes, old iMacs, a never-used breadmaker. The mangled frame of the second-hand Casio keyboard I threw down the stairs when my high school band broke up is mostly buried. The corpse of the electric guitar I