Salem's Sight Read Online Free

about her parents. “Do
people bug you about it?”
    “ Not really. Although some
people say my name a million times whenever they talk to
me.”
    “ Yeah, I know what you
mean. That happens to me a lot too.” And I really could relate.
It’s weird. When you have a common name, your friends just talk to
you regular. But when you have a different name, I don’t know, for
some reason your name constantly gets put into the
conversation.
    “ So a tobacco company? Why
come here to Rhode Island? What’d he do, switch
careers?”
    I didn’t want to talk about my dad, so
I made it short and sweet. “Sort of, he… Um, he died a few months
ago and my mom thought it would be a good idea to move and get a
fresh start.”
    Her jaw fell open and I could tell she
wished she’d never asked. It took her a second to respond, but when
she did, it was honest and to the point. “That sucks.”
    “ Tell me about it.” I hoped
that would be the end of the discussion, but she
continued.
    “ Your mom didn’t get that
it would just upset you more to move out of state?”
    For some odd reason, I felt the need
to defend my mom. “She really thought it was for the best. It’s
been hard on her too.”
    Saying it out loud made the fact real,
which I’d so never admitted, even to myself. I liked to think I
held the world record on suffering. It made it easier to stay mad
at Mom.
    Berkley took the stack of papers that
were being passed to her, gave me one, and then handed them to the
next lab table. “Well consider me the welcoming committee. I’ll
show you around. Anything you need to know, I’m the one to ask. Are
you taking all Advanced Placement classes or just this
one?”
    “ All AP.” I hated saying
it. Most college-bound kids had only some AP classes. To be in all
of them meant you got labeled brainiac or nerd.
    Which was ironic. I mean, I wasn’t all
that into school. I wanted to get good grades and I studied, but it
wasn’t like I had to put in a lot of extra effort. Unfortunately,
being smart was the antithesis of being cool. You could be cool and
be smart in an area or two, but highest honors in all AP classes
without breaking a sweat could be hell on your social
life.
    I’d never thought about it back home
because most of my friends had been my friends since we were little
kids. Long before the school pigeonholed us in terms of
intellectual potential.
    “ Good, then we’ll have
other classes together too. Probably most. There aren’t many of
us.”
    She didn’t need to say more, I
understood completely. We were brethren. Which meant time to show
the sarcasm. “So the only thing weird about us is our
names?”
    Berkley grinned, “Looks like
it.”
    We completed our introductory lab,
chatting through it like we’d known each other forever. For the
first time, I wondered if it would be possible to like it here.
There was something instant with Berkley, a type of kinship I’d
never felt before.
    When class ended, the masses hurled
through the door and Berkley and I meandered to our next class. I
started to relax and feel comfortable, as if I’d fit in
fine.
    Then I saw him.
    Or he saw me. I mean, somehow you just
know when someone is staring at you. Not just looking, but staring.
I glanced away from Berkley and my eyes honed in on his. My breath
caught, my stomach flipped, and my heart beat double
time.
    Can we say seriously cute? I mean, way
more than just cute. Try Adonis. A Greek god. No, a movie star.
Maybe my destiny. Yeah, right, get a grip. But he was staring at
me.
    Unfortunately he wasn’t ogling me in a
‘wow, she’s hot’ kind of way. Instead, he gawked at me like I had
two heads or something.
    So much for feeling
comfortable.
    “ Um, Berkley, who is that
guy and why is he looking at me like that?” I looked down at my
clothes to make sure I wasn’t covered in a bizarre substance or
missing an article of clothing.
    “ Answer to question one –
senior hottie Robbie – and answer to question two