In the Break Read Online Free

young,” I said.
    “Nobody’s getting anything,” my mother said.
    “I’m gonna go shoot baskets,” I said. My mother gave me the stare. “May I please be excused?”
    It was around sunset when I climbed on top of the block wall that surrounds our backyard and looked out to sea. From a standing
     position on the wall, I could see the surfline at Playa Chica. The waves did seem to be building — there was a solid line
     of white-water crashing on shore. Cool. Tomorrow would be good. But tomorrow was a school day. Monday. Maybe I could fake
     being sick.
    I sat on the wall, watching the colors of the sky as they transitioned from day to night, from bright and textured to dark
     and flat. When it was almost dark, I went inside the house.

    A theme song for some bogus reality show was going when I thought I heard something outside. My mother was asleep. Becauseshe worked in the morning, she’d go to bed early. Nestor had already left for work, taking his old Toyota pickup. My younger
     brother and sister were asleep, since they went to bed at 9:00. Probably the wind. It had been really blowing when I came
     in at sunset.
    I sort of had the house to myself and was enjoying it. I had some homework to do, had to study for a test, print out an assignment
     for English, nothing to get excited over. I liked to stay up late and do my schoolwork when the house was quiet. The problem
     was that I aced everything without trying; I just wasn’t challenged, as Mr. Vance, my homeroom teacher said. I was considering
     skipping eleventh grade next year and going right to twelfth, if this year stayed so boring. The problem was that Jamie wasn’t
     in the H classes — the honors classes — and I’d be a grade ahead of him, and I’d graduate a year before him. I resisted last
     year when my counselor, Mrs. Perez, had approached my parents. I’ll give this to Nestor and my mother, they don’t force things
     on me that I don’t want. As the theme song continued playing I went into the kitchen to get a bowl of ice cream. I thought
     I heard a tap at the front door, but ignored it because nobody would come over on Sunday night. I plopped back down on the
     sofa, spooning ice cream down my gullet, with all the big, comfortable pillows propping me up. There it was again. Tap, tap,
     very lightly. And again.
    What the? I thought on my way to the door and opened it.
    “Juan,” Amber hissed. She wore a T-shirt and her frayed cutoff Levi’s and her hair was all messed up and she was way out of
     breath and it looked as if she’d been crying. She held her hands together, wringing them, a gesture I’d never seen her do,
     making her backpack fall off her shoulder.
    I hated to admit it, but after dinner I had forgotten about the shit this morning. Overcoming my surprise, I said, “Come in.”
     I could count on the fingers of my right hand the times Amber had been over, and I couldn’t ever remember when she was here
     on her own.
    “No,” she said. She was breathing hard, as if she’d been running, but she was trying to mask it so she’d be quiet.
    I’d always had a crush on Amber. And now here she was at my door, her chest heaving up and down and her powerful and perpetually
     tanned legs twitching into a pigeon-toed stance. Her individual features were angular, sharp, and she shouldn’t be good-looking,
     but she was. She was beautiful, in my opinion. It wasn’t that Amber was so stunningly good-looking or an outrageous babe or
     anything. But once you saw her you wouldn’t forget; her beauty was not ordinary.
    After she caught her breath she said, “Jamie’s on the beach. He beat the shit out of F.”
    “Come in.”
    “I’m taking him money. He got some stuff together and left. He asked me to get you.”
    “Where’s F now?”
    “I’m not sure. My mother called the paramedics. I think the cops’ll come too.”
    “Crap. Get in.” I leaned forward and grabbed her arm, pulling her into the entry hall. I turned off