When We Were Us (Keeping Score, #1) Read Online Free

kind of funny that my first memory was of Abby choosing between Jesse and me.  That didn’t really happen again until later, when we started fifth grade.  That year, when Jesse started playing with the other kids at lunch, I knew Abby would rather be running around with all of them instead of sitting on the monkey bars every day with me.  But she never said it, and she never left me.  And I never said she should. 
    Maybe it was selfish, but I guess that I felt like my whole life was a little unfair.  Abby made up for some of that.  If it was selfish to want her to stay near me and be my friend, I was okay with that. 
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    C hapter 4:  Abby
    I thought starting over in a new school for fifth grade was hard.  It was nothing compared to moving to the junior high for eighth grade.  At least in fifth grade, we were still kids.  Lunch time on the playground was the most stressful part of the day.  But in junior high, suddenly everyone started breaking off into groups, and there were cool people. . .and then some who weren’t considered so cool.  Some people called them dorks or whatever, but it was really just someone’s opinion.  In eighth grade, there are a very few people whose viewpoints matter.  I wasn’t one of them.
    Somehow over the summer, all the girls who had played Barbies and doll house with me morphed into strangers who wore lip gloss and worried about their hair.  I missed that memo, I guess.  I still liked to play with dolls and I didn’t care what my hair looked like, as long as it was out of my way. 
    Add to that the fact that my two best friends were boys, and I was practically an outcast.  But it didn’t matter to me at first.  I had Jesse and Nat.  If Jesse had grown away from us a little in fifth grade, he made his way back over the next few years.  That was mostly because Nat and I began playing kickball at recess.  Even though he couldn’t really run, Nat could kick the ball.  The other kids let me be his pinch-runner, and together we were a great team.  Jesse stopped being embarrassed by his two friends who sat on the monkey bars every day.  He always chose us first for his team.
    When I got to school on the first day of eighth grade, Nat and Jesse were already standing in line against the building.  This was junior high, and there was no playground anymore.  Instead we waited outside the glass doors until the bell rang, and then we filed inside and hoped to find the lockers we’d been assigned.
    I joined the boys, smiling my greeting.  Nat returned my smile and greeted me.  “Hey, Abby!  You look really pretty.”  This was high praise from Nat, who rarely paid anyone a spontaneous compliment.  I smoothed the denim skirt my mom had made me wear that morning and thanked him and then snuck a look at Jesse. 
    Most of the boys in our class were still shorter than the girls and scrawny.  They could have easily passed for a year or two younger than thirteen.  But not Jesse.  He had sprouted up three inches over the summer, and the lawn mowing business he ran with his two older brothers had given him muscled arms and a light tan.  He grinned at me from his spot against the wall.
    “Hey, Ab,” he said.  “Your mom make you wear that?” 
    Irrationally his words irritated me.  It was true that I didn’t wear skirts or dresses very often, but couldn’t he have said something nice, like Nat had?  Instead he had to tease me.  I suddenly hated the skirt more than I had this morning when my mom had handed it to me.
    “Of course,” I snapped.  “Didn’t your mother dress you today?”
    Still grinning, he shrugged.  “Sure.  I don’t care about clothes.”  His eyes wandered along the lines of other students, and I saw them warm with appreciation.  I followed his gaze to a pretty girl in a short cotton sundress and heels.  She was definitely older than we were, but I didn’t like the expression of admiration on Jesse’s face.  I