Faking Normal Read Online Free Page A

from yesterday. In fact, he looks like he’s left over from yesterday.But how can you tell with a guy who wears the exact same clothes every day? I wonder if they really are the same ones or just a look-alike set.
    He smiles back.
    It’s an audible smile, almost a happy sigh.
    “Hey,” he says.
    Oh boy, we’re back to the heys. I bend down to open my locker. “Hey,” I say. “Hair’s still blue.”
    “Yeah.” His locker door, which is just above mine, doesn’t make a sound as he shuts it. But he actually looks at me. “Neck’s still red,” he says.
    My mouth falls open, and my hands go to work smoothing and patting my already straight hair against my neck so no one else sees the little wounds. “It happens in my sleep,” I say.
    “Mine too,” he says. “I wake up and it’s a different color.”
    Bodee tosses his hair in a way that is neither mean nor a joke. His voice is soft, sort of like my dad’s. It keeps my own voice calm as I say, “Don’t tell anyone.”
    Those are zombie words. I immediately wish I hadn’t said to Bodee what was said to me.
    He smiles again. But this time, thanks to the hair toss, I can see his eyes. They’re brown.
    “No one to tell,” he says.
    We walk to homeroom beside each other but with enough distance to drive Craig’s golf cart between us. While I’ve logged one fact about Bodee, brown eyes, he’s collected a piece of information I haven’t shared with my closest friends yet.
    That’s a game changer. Because what do I have on him?
    Day-old blue hair.
    There’s absolutely no reason to assume he won’t tell someone. Maybe he’ll tell his new football friend, and that friend will tell Ray at practice, and Ray will tell Liz on the phone, and Liz will tell Heather, and the two of them will go to my parents. Would they do that?
    Or maybe Bodee has already told someone. Told his mom before she died, and she told my mom at prayer group.
    Oh God, my parents know.
    That’s what the family meeting is about. It’s not bad like cancer; it’s good like We’ll get you the help you need .
    I can hear it now.
    Shit. Shit.
    Homeroom is full already. Bodee takes his assigned desk to the left of mine and is back to his old mute self. His cheek lies against the desk with two handfuls of blue locks to hide behind. There’s no hope of trying to guess what he’s thinking.
    My heart’s racing on its own track now, putting roller coasters to shame. And black diamond ski slopes. And airplanes falling out of the sky.
    There’s a tap at my shoulder. “Alexi.”
    My head is spinning. If I twist around to see Maggie, I’ll throw up.
    “Lex?”
    Maggie Lister sits in the chair directly behind mine. But she must be in the wrong seat today, because she sounds a long, long way away.
    “Are you going out with Dane?” she persists.
    She taps again, but I’m frozen.
    “Hey,” Bodee says.
    His voice snaps me out of my stupor. “Hey,” I say.
    There’s nothing audible, but I can read his lips. “Even if I had someone to tell, I promise I wouldn’t.”
    I breathe. And nod. Either he’s as good at lying as I am or this is the truth. Since I’ve only basically exchanged one-word sentences with him, I’m not sure I can judge. But he has color in his cheeks, and I must look as white as snow. And one step up from a coma.
    Maggie’s spazzing. My cookies don’t feel as tossed as they were a minute ago, so I risk swiveling in my seat to face her.
    “Sorry.” I think fast for an excuse to explain my dazed and confused state. “I just realized we have a test in psych today. That I forgot.”
    “Oh, crap. Do we? I thought that was next Tuesday.” She sifts frantically through her purse until she finds a memo pad. “Yeah, I have it right here. October second. Next Tuesday.”
    “Whew. Thank goodness. I almost totally flipped.”
    “Me too,” she says as she tosses the memo pad back into the abyss she calls a purse. “You gotta tell me about Dane.”
    I shrug.
    “Girl, you