The Sphere Read Online Free

show you that I wanted to be alone. Stand up. Walk off. It should be easy, right? Axel walks along beside me in silence. I realize I’m being too hard on myself, yet again. It’s not that I’m a failure at expressing what I want, it’s that Axel has a sixth sense. He doesn’t always use it, but he has it. He realizes everything . What I want, what I don’t want. Sometimes I suspect that when he doesn’t use his sixth sense it’s only because he doesn’t feel like it. Because it suits him.
    “They didn’t realize you’d fainted,” he says after a while. “You shouldn’t feel bad about it. How could you think they would just go off like that, calmly, if they knew you weren’t okay?”
    Like I said: he sees what I think. It hurts me more than you could imagine to be ignored like that by my own family. He touches my shoulder. It ought to just be a regular pat of encouragement, but no, Axel doesn’t know the first thing about pats—he caresses my shoulder. I’m not exaggerating, and I’m not mistaken—that was definitely a caress. I pick up the pace and keep my eyes glued to the sand.
    “They didn’t know you were sick.”
    “Come on, Axel,” I pronounce his name with a snort, “How could they not know? They forgot about me like always. That’s just how it is.”
    Axel takes me by the shoulders so he can look at me. Shit! I love his eyes. I look away and start walking again.
    “I don’t think anyone realized what happened to you. Your brother had blood all down his chest, it was pretty shocking. Everyone was paying attention to him. Right when you fainted the parents of the other kids showed up and, well—there was kind of an uproar. Everybody was talking all at once, and you fainted so discreetly...”
    “Next time I’ll clap before I fall down.”
    “I’m sorry, you’re right—fainting discreetly doesn’t make much sense. But... that’s how it was. Everyone was yelling and arguing and you collapsed, just like that.”
    “So how’d you realize what had happened to me?”
    Axel touches my hand. I know. I know how he realized. I look at him with a serious expression.
    “All right,” he says, putting his hands up.
    “What was the fight about?” I ask.
    “Because the other boys made fun of your brothers’ names, as far as I can tell.”
    “How odd, to make fun of such normal names!”
    “Mercutio and Benvolio!...” Axel smiles so widely that for a moment I’m afraid he’ll get sand in his teeth. “Your parents are really clever. Romeo...”
    “Yeah, Mercutio and Benvolio from Romeo and Juliet ,” I interrupt sharply. Time to find out if you’re a book freak, too... “How do you know?”
    I stop walking. I need to look him in the eye to hear his answer. I want the truth.
    “Know what—what the names have to do with Romeo and Juliet ?” He shrugs and holds both hands out as if to say he couldn’t help knowing. “Romeo’s friend and Romeo’s cousin. It’s brilliant for a set of twins.”
    Axel just let me down in the worst way possible. It feels like I caught him doing—I don’t even know, something horrific. I suspected he was a freak, him too, just like my parents. But it’s one thing to suspect it and another to prove it. What kind of cosmic joke is this? Why do they all have to be so close to me? The planet is huge, couldn’t they spread out a little? God of the misfits? Yes—you. It’s your number one underdog calling. Please don’t let me die right here and now. Not next to someone who got the literary reference of my brothers’ names right off the bat.
    The wind makes so much noise in my ears that I’m cut off for a few seconds. For a moment I feel alone on the beach, alone in the world. I glance over at Axel. I hate him with everything in me for looking at me with that sweet expression. It always makes me feel so nervous. He’s noticed my loneliness. He’s a book freak, now I know it. I hate feeling so confused about him, but no—I can’t fall back in