One Lonely Degree Read Online Free Page A

page, leaving rivers of absence that gleam like fork lightning. I can do better than this. My first thoughts are never right; my first thoughts are pure me. Second thoughts aren’t much better.
    Jasper coughs as he studies my anti-masterpiece, and right then Jersy swings by behind us again, biting his lip. This brainiac-turned-stoner guy named Billy mutters something to him and Jersy nods, his blue-green eyes looking fed up to the teeth. He manhandles the chair before collapsing into it with his arms crossed.
    I didn’t intend to pass on our phone number anyway, but now I don’t have to feel guilty about it. Jersy needs to be left alone.
    “It was good,” Jasper says, tapping my page. “What’d you do that for?”
    I shrug. “Maybe I’m feeling destructive.” Sometimes I can’t control what I think or feel. Other times I think about Adam Porter just to prove to myself that I can handle it. He doesn’t really have any power over me. How can someone who won’t even look at you have any power over you?
    Across the room Mr. Ferguson is patting down his gray hair. He messes with his hair so much that it’s amazing he still has any. It’s so annoying that I want to charge across the room and pin his hands down by his side. I do the next best thing—I watch him until he catches my gaze. His hands float down to his desk as his cheeks tighten. The second he does that I feel bad for him. Why stop on my account?
    Sometimes I think so hard that it’s a wonder my head doesn’t fly off. Like before, when Billy Young made that comment to Jersy, I started remembering all these details about Billy. He was the smartest guy in my seventh-grade class, although he never raised his hand. He threw up before the annual public-speaking contest and then won it by a mile with his speech on Nelson Mandela. This dork girl, Tamyra, used to follow him around the schoolyard, but he was never mean to her. In fact, he used to be equally nice to everyone—before he turned stoner and gave up on the rest of the population.
    I sneak a look at Billy, wondering why he changed so much, but Jersy catches me. He mouths something, but I’m already dropping my gaze, pretending that I can’t see.
    Jasper elbows me and motions towards Jersy. “Your buddy wants something.”
    By now half the table is watching me, turning my face warm, and I force myself to stare at Jersy straight on, but by the time I do he’s already turned away. When the bell rings a few minutes later, the entire class moves in slow motion towards the door. No one’s ever in a hurry for art class to be over, and that makes it easy for me to wait for Jersy without being obvious. I don’t even know why I’m bothering—unless it’s for my six-year-old self.
    I feel like an idiot the second I step into the hall. My legs want to rush to civics, but Jersy’s right behind me and he’s saying, “Hey, Finn, hold up a second.”
    “Hmm?” I stop and face him, casual as anything.
    “You owe me big-time,” he says, grinning like a kid trying to hold a secret. I’m completely clueless and it must be written all over my face because he tilts his head and adds, “For not stealing your chair again. The guy next to me thinks he’s a fucking Mormon—and here I thought this was Catholic school.” He motions to my civics textbook, which is thicker than the Bible but even less interesting. “Can I write in this?”
    “Write in it?” I repeat.
    “My home phone number.” Jersy has his pencil ready and is flipping over the cover. “I told my mom about running into you— she wants your mom to get in touch.”
    “Okay.” I stare down at the digits appearing on the page. “Thanks.” I’m so hung up on reading the magic numbers that the burst of laughter from across the hall nearly makes me drop my book. I’d know that laugh anywhere; it’s the laugh of a high school superstar, and it makes me sick to my stomach.
    I don’t look up but I see Adam Porter anyway. He’s in my