On the Edge Read Online Free Page B

COUNSELING. That I was suffering from PTSD. That my “faith in humanity had been shattered by witnessing such a horrible crime.” It was a pretty impressive diagnosis, and a testament to her faithful watching of Dr. Drew.
    She was probably right.
    I had seen a shrink a few times after Dad’s death—or a grief counselor , as she’d called herself, but it was all the same to me. She’d kept asking me about that day, about how it felt to be brought home from school early by my grandmother, only to be told that my dad had died of a heart attack. The shrink wanted to know how I, as an eleven-year-old, was handling this trauma. But all I’d wanted was to stop being pressured to put words to a grief I had no words for.
    Now Mom was insisting that I see someone again. So the following week I made an appointment with the school psychologist. It would at least confirm to everyone at school that I was in desperate need of psychological help. Why else would I, Maddie Diaz, a supposedly smart girl and editor of the school newspaper, Prep Talk , have ratted on two Reyes?
    Because I was batshit crazy, of course.
    I was just lucky that I didn’t go to my neighborhood school. If I were at Rivera with Carmen and Abby, I’d be a target. Rivera was full of gangbangers, some of them affiliated with the Reyes.
    Thursday at lunch was the school newspaper meeting. I was tempted to reschedule it for next week, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had enough trouble chasing everyone down for their articles as it was, and any delay would only make it worse.
    Although I’d been on the newspaper staff since I was a freshman, I’d never dreamed of being editor. I had enough on my plate with trying to maintain my GPA and working on weekends. But last September Ms. Halsall, the staff advisor to the newspaper, had suggested I go for it. She’d said that being editor would look great on a college application, and that my writing was “incisive and brave.” I hadn’t even known what incisive meant, but I knew why she’d called it brave. I’d written an article on girl trafficking in Miami, and people still talked about it.
    Since everybody on staff knew that I could write, I got elected. The thing was, no one knew if I could lead. Including me.
    At first, running the meetings had scared the hell out of me. Although my voice was steady, I could feel my knees trembling. But I made it through those first few weeks, and proved to myself that I really was cut out for this. Once I’d figured that out, my knees stopped shaking.
    When the noon bell rang, everybody flooded in. For once, all ten of them showed up.
    â€œHey, guys, let’s get started.” I looked around. “Who’s doing the film and TV section for the April edition?”
    Brad raised his hand. “I’ll do it.”
    â€œEverybody cool with that?” I asked. “Great. Now, I think we should do Part Five of Staff Stories . You can choose whoever you want, but I bet Ms. Karpoff would be interesting. She grew up in Romania, post World War Two.”
    â€œI’ll do it, but I want to write about Mr. Marshall,” Samantha said. “He’s got all these stories from the Gulf War.”
    â€œAwesome. Now, for the social issues section.”
    When I paused to take a breath, Cassidy jumped in. “You have to do social issues this time, Maddie. Everybody wants to know exactly what happened with that homeless guy. And it could be a jumping-off point for a discussion of gang violence. Didn’t you say in the fall we should write about that?”
    Leave it to Cassidy to bring up the one thing I wasn’t ready to talk about—or write about.
    The room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Maybe this was why attendance was so good today. Everyone wanted the story.
    â€œI can’t write about it for legal reasons,” I said.
    â€œDoes that mean you’re gonna