Free Hate List by Jennifer Brown Page A

was either going to find me a chair or give me his. He wasn’t eating. He almost never did.
    Duce kicked the foot of David’s chair, jolting him. He didn’t look at David when he did it, but David stopped anyway and sat
     back down. He sort of shrugged shyly and turned his eyes to the table, as far away from me as possible. Duce started talking
     to Stacey again, very close to her ear. She giggled. Even David had gotten absorbed into something Bridget was saying. It
     was like, with Nick gone, the “family” had kicked me out. Or maybe I had kicked myself out; I don’t know.
    “No problem,” I said, though nobody appeared to have heard me. “I can just sit somewhere else. No big deal.”
    What I really meant by that was that I would slink away and go sit outside somewhere alone where nobody would bother me and,
     more importantly, I wouldn’t bother anyone else. It was for the best, really. What would I have talked to them about anyway?
     They had spent the summer getting on with their lives. I had spent mine desperately scrambling to build a new one.
    I turned around and looked across the cafeteria. It was weird—it all seemed the same as it had before. The same kids were
     sitting together. The same skinny girls were eating the same salads. The same jocks were loading up on proteins. The same
     nerds were acting invisible in the corner. The noise was deafening. Mr. Cavitt was wandering among the tables snapping, “Hands
     above board, kids. Hands above board!”
    The only thing that had changed was me.
    I took a deep breath and pressed forward, trying my best to ignore Stacey’s laughs and squeals behind me.
This is what you wanted
, I told myself.
You wanted to push Stacey away. You wanted to come back to Garvin. You wanted to prove that you shouldn’t have to hide. You
     wanted this, now you’ve got it. It’s only lunch. Just suck it up and get through it.
I kept my eyes on my tray and on the floor in front of me as I walked out into the hallway.
    I pressed my back into the wall just outside the Commons, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes. I let out a deep breath.
     I was sweating and my hands were starting to feel cold around the tray. I totally wasn’t hungry and I wished this day would
     just go away. Slowly I sank down to the floor and set the tray on the floor in front of me. I rested my elbows on my knees
     and plopped my head into my hands.
    In my head I went back to the only safe place I knew: Nick. I remembered sitting on his bedroom floor, Playstation controller
     in hand, yelling at him, “You better not let me win. Damn it, Nick, you’re letting me win. Cut it out!”
    And him doing that thing he did with his mouth whenever he was being ornery—sticking his tongue out slightly to the side,
     mouth hanging open in a smile, snickering softly every few seconds.
    “Nick, I said to cut it out. Seriously, don’t let me win. I hate it when you do that. It’s insulting.”
    More laughing every few seconds and then in one fiery swoop, purposely losing the game we were playing.
    “Damn it, Nick!” I cried, smacking him in the arm with my controller, as my character flashed up on the TV screen in a victorious
     pose. “I told you not to let me win. God!” I crossed my arms over my chest and looked away from him.
    He was laughing out loud now, bumping my shoulder with his. “What?” he said. “What? You won fair and square. Besides, you’re
     just a girl. You needed help.”
    “Oh, you did not just say that. I’ll show you help,” I snarled, tossing my controller to the side and practically tackling
     him, making him laugh all the harder.
    I pummeled him playfully on the shoulders and chest with my fists, his mischievousness ruining my pout. You didn’t see it
     very often with Nick, but when he was in the mood to play around, it was contagious as hell. “Oh no! Oh don’t, you big brute,”
     he kept saying in this high, mocking voice between laughs. “Ouch, you’re hurting