Broken Read Online Free Page A

the opposite direction, heart aching, knowing Daniel is forever gone, as I aim for the torture chamber the staff of Shelley High likes to call the Gymnasium.
    Group and Individual Sports takes up my third hour. Normally I hate it, but hope bubbles up, thinking it’s a chance to get physical and forget about Shelley High’s latest addition to the student body. The locker room flooring mini-tiles are shades of brown, beige, and pukey pink, the lockers are beige, the rest is white. An ugly room. Usually filled with gossip, and this morning’s no different.
    Alex, Alex, Alex.
    Alex Franks, his height, his leather jacket and the way his jeans hang on his butt are the main topics of conversation in the Ugly Room. Josie Cummings has him in her second hour. “He wears his hood up all the time,” and she thinks “it’s sexy, even if he is a killer.” Faith Lewis ran into him in the hall, “accidentally,” she swears with a giggle, and her “cell phone hasn’t worked right since.” Ally Rhodes places bets with a few of her friends as to how soon she can get him to date her.
    Rolling my eyes, I pull on my gym clothes. I wish I could be like them, excited about a boy, whispering about his looks, gossiping over whether he has a girlfriend. Daniel was that guy for me. His hazel eyes were so easy to get lost in. He held me and the world disappeared . Daniel was the one to carry me home when I tripped over that hydrant and broke my ankle. He was mine and losing him the way I did ripped a hole in me.
    No new guy was ever going to fill the void he left.
    My cell phone comes alive in my locker, a swarm in a metal can. I ignore Bree this time, and whip my hair into a ponytail. Our gym Drill Sarge is neither understanding nor accepting of phones, iPods, or any other portable electronic device in his class.
    There is no mercy in Mr. Ashford’s eyes or his shiny whistle when we walk in. A mesh bag of basketballs rests at his feet in the middle of the gym. His buzz cut bounces back the overhead lights as he struts back and forth barking orders. A full class hour of running and shooting baskets—my most dreaded activity. Running, dribbling a ball I lose as much as keep, and missing the baskets I shoot at anyway. Dear God , I think, just kill me now .
    Slicked in saltwater, ponytail slid halfway down the back of my head, I stagger through the showers after running so much I thought I’d puke. Lather, rinse, repeatedly curse the Drill Sarge.
    #
    Somehow, the student body seems to double during the lunch hour, collecting in one hall and one big room. Voices echo in the side hallway, dismembered and blurry with volume. Laughter punches through the cacophony, an occasional squeal slashes above the din. The sound batters my ears, and I quash the urge to skip lunch to avoid the throng.
    The lunch line is ridiculously long, as always. The queue snakes out the door and down the hall. Tired and wringing shower water from my hair, I take last position.
    “Emma!” Bree pokes her face out of the doorway. Her fake blond hair swings out like a flag. “Didn’t you get my text? I’m saving you a spot.”
    That was what the text was about? She always saves me a spot in line, I just forgot. Good thing Bree’s parents put her on an unlimited plan for her phone. I look up, blink and try to focus—when tired and a tad flustered, I run on auto-pilot, which includes standing in lines.
    “Hey,” whines a zit-faced, greasy-haired freshman, “no saving spots.”
    “When you’re an upperclassman,” comes a smooth tenor voice behind him, “you’ll use the same unwritten privileges.”
    Heads swivel toward the source. Mine, too.
    Tall, hood up, long sleeves pulled down over his wrists and thumbs shoved through the cuffs. Sadly, I look to see how well Alex Franks’s jeans look on his butt. The girls in the Ugly Room didn’t lie. He wears them well, fills them in all the right spots. No sooner does the admiration of Alex’s behind form, than a