Black Heart Read Online Free Page A

don’t know what she wants.”
    “Did something happen?”
    “We met up for coffee, but then it turned into the same old argument.” He shakes his head. “I don’t understand. She’s the one who lied. She’s the one who never told me she was a worker. She probably never would have told me either, if her brother hadn’t blurted it out. How come I’m the one who has to keep apologizing?”
    In all relationships there’s a balance of power. Some relationships are a constant fight for the upper hand. In others one person is in charge—although not always the person who thinks they are. Then, I guess there are relationships so equal that no one has to think about it. I don’tknow anything about those. What I do know is that power can shift in a moment. Way back at the beginning of their relationship, Sam was always deferring to Daneca. But once he got mad, he couldn’t seem to stop being angry.
    By the time he was ready to hear her apology, she no longer wanted to give it. And so they’ve somersaulted back and forth these past few weeks, neither one sorry enough to placate the other, neither of them sorry at the right time, both sure the other is in the wrong.
    I can’t tell if that means they’re broken up or not. Neither can Sam.
    “If you don’t know why you’re apologizing, your apology probably sucks,” I say.
    He shakes his head. “I know. But I just want things to go back to the way they were.”
    I know that feeling all too well. “What do you want me to say to her?”
    “Just find out what I can do to fix things.”
    There’s so much desperation in his voice that I agree. I’ll try. He’s got to know he’s already in a pretty bad way if he’s coming to me for help in matters of the heart. There’s no point rubbing it in.
     
    In the morning I am crossing the quad, hoping the coffee I drank in the common room will kick in soon, when I pass my ex-girlfriend, Audrey Dolan, in a clump of her friends. Her copper hair gleams like a new penny in the sunlight, and her eyes follow me reproachfully. One of her friends says something just low enough for me not to hear, and the rest laugh.
    “Hey, Cassel,” one of them calls, so that I have to turn around. “Still taking bets?”
    “Nope,” I say.
    See, I’m trying to go legit. I’m trying.
    “Too bad,” the girl shouts, “because I want to put down a hundred bucks that you’ll die alone.”
    Sometimes I don’t know why I am fighting so hard to stay here at Wallingford. My grades, always determinedly and consistently mediocre, have really taken a dive in the last year. It’s not like I’m going to college. I think about Yulikova and the training my brother is getting. All I would have to do is drop out. I’m just delaying the inevitable.
    The girl laughs again, and Audrey and the others laugh with her.
    I just keep walking.
     
    In Developing World Ethics we talk a little bit about journalistic bias in reporting and how it influences what we think. When asked to give an example, Kevin Brown brings up an article about my mother. He thinks that too many reporters blame Patton for being an easy dupe.
    “She’s a criminal,” says Kevin. “Why try to act like Governor Patton was supposed to be prepared for his girlfriend to try to curse him? It’s an obvious example of a reporter trying to discredit the victim. I wouldn’t be surprised if that Shandra Singer had gotten to him, too.”
    Someone snickers.
    I stare at my desk, focusing on the pen in my hand, and the sound of chalk scraping across the board as Mr. Lewisquickly launches into an example from a recent news story about Bosnia. I feel that strange hyper-focus that occurs when everything narrows to the present. The past and the future fade away. There is only now and the ticking moments, until the bell rings and we hustle out into the hall.
    “Kevin?” I say softly.
    He turns, smirking. People rush around us, clutching bags and books. They look like streaks of color in my