Tru Love Read Online Free

call her mother.
                  “No,” Genny says. “She’ll worry, and it’s really just a few scrapes.”
                  “Well, take this home with you.” She hands her a piece of paper that lists her injury and the treatment she received. “We want your mom to know we took good care of you.”
                  Genny smiles and stuffs the paper in her back pocket. She takes the stairs to the second floor two at a time and sprints to her classroom.
                  Mr. Cooke is already at his podium. A map of the thirteen colonies is projected onto the white board and he’s using a marker to trace boundaries on the transparency. He doesn’t even look up when Genny slips through the door.
                  “Glad you could make it, Ms. Vout,” he says, still tracing. “I wasn’t sure, after yesterday’s performance, if you were still interested in our founding fathers.”
    A few of her classmates giggle. Genny ignores them and walks to the back of the room. She stops, though, when she realizes that her desk is taken.
                  “We’re short on desks,” Mr. Cooke explains, “and not knowing if you were coming or not . . .” He looks up, his eyes, behind his thick glasses, magnified to a freakish size. “You wouldn’t mind sitting at the table, would you?”
                  She does and she doesn’t mind letting it show as she swings her backpack from her shoulder and walks several feet past her desk, and the new kid—Truman Whatever—to the table occupied already by globes and rolled canvas maps. She’ll have to spend the hour with her notebook on her knees, scribbling notes she doesn’t want to take and probably won’t be able to read.
                  She’s seated and groping at the bottom of her bag for a pencil when she realizes two things at once: the cool air in the room is reaching under the torn flap of her jeans and stinging her raw flesh; and someone is standing over her, his shadow long and deep.
                  She doesn’t want to look up. The only thing she hates more than electrocution is standing in the limelight of unwanted attention. She’s sure the whole class is looking at her now, if they weren’t already while Cooke was roasting her.
                  So far, this morning has been one embarrassment after another and it doesn’t look like it’s going to improve.
                  “Take my seat, er, your seat,” he invites. His accent makes his voice musical. British or Australian, maybe. South African. Right now, Genny wishes he never reached their shores.
                  “No, thanks,” she mumbles.
    If she doesn’t look at him, doesn’t get caught up in all that perfect anger he has every right to feel, then she has a chance, she decides. Her mind won’t freeze, like it did earlier.
                  “I insist,” he presses. “I didn’t realize it was taken.”
                  “It’s OK,” she whispers. “I owe you one.”
                  He bends toward her and whispers back, “You owe me a lot more than a splintered piece of wood to chafe my backside on.”
                  She can hear the smile in his voice and hates it. That’s what she tells myself, anyway. She doesn’t like charm. She likes real happiness. The sun-rising kind of happiness that is Hunter.
                  “Fine,” Genny says. “Just sit down. People are going to stare.”
                  “They’re already staring,” he informs her, his voice still warm with laughter. “They’ve been staring since you walked into the room. And I’ll sit down as soon as you get out of my seat.”
                  Genny gathers her things and pushes past him, bumping his shoulder with her own. He staggers backwards a foot and she pauses. She didn’t think she put a