Will Always Be Read Online Free Page A

goes way back with Carmen except for me. I swear I must have lived under a rock my entire freshman year or something.
    “Oh,” I say, nodding and starting to take my own notebooks out of my bag. “So you must know I’m acting like a ridiculous jealous girlfriend right?” It comes out in a kind of joking way and I find myself laughing a little to myself.
    But to my surprise, when I look up Mark isn’t laughing. He’s kind of just staring at me. And it could be my imagination but I swear he has a sad expression on his face, almost like he feels sorry for me or something.
    “What?” I ask him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    He looks uncomfortable for a second and then shakes his head. “Nothing.”
    “Mark,” I say slowly, “what’s wrong?”
    He starts slowly drumming his fingertips on the table. Up and down, up and down, up and down.
    “It’s just…Carmen doesn’t really have respect for relationships. If you know what I mean.”
    “So,” I ask, “you’re saying I should be worried?”
    Mark pauses and then starts drumming his fingers on the table again.
    “Mark?” I try again.
    “I’m saying you should be really worried. Especially because Austin’s done this type of thing before. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
    “Done what type of thing before?” I ask.
    Mark shrugs. “Cheated on his girlfriends.”
    My heart starts beating extremely fast in my chest. Is Mark honestly sitting there telling me that Austin is a cheater? No, that couldn’t be possible. Although I’m not exactly sure about Austin’s dating history. I hadn’t even started to like him until this past summer. Sure, I’ve seen him with a few different girls in the past but I never heard anything about them ending badly. There was no way he would ever do anything like that. He was way too nice of a guy.
    “I never heard anything about that,” I say honestly.
    Mark laughs loudly and a few people in the library turn to look at us.
    He lowers his voice and leans forward. “I wouldn’t tell my new girlfriend about the past girlfriends I’ve cheated on. Would you?”
    “Girlfriends?” I ask him. “As in more than one?”
    He shrugs. “Who knows? But probably.”
    There must be a pained expression that comes across my face or something because he adds almost as an after thought, “But it’s probably different with you. I mean, didn’t he like serenade you in front of the whole school or something?”
    I try to stop the millions of thoughts racing through my head so I can concentrate on what Mark’s saying, but it’s a little hard at the moment. He’s talking about the first day of school a few months ago.
    It’s a really long story, but when we first got back to school, Austin ignored me for the first like, half of the day. I ended up getting in a pushing match with Melissa over him and he asked me out in front of his whole lunch period. The whole thing was actually pretty romantic if you ask me. Word about it had spread through our entire grade. And, apparently to the senior class as well.
    I shake my head and force a little laugh. “Something like that.”
    “See,” he says, “so it’s clearly different with you.” Only he doesn’t seem like he means it.
    And just as Karli flops her books down on the table to join us, he looks me in the eye and adds, “Probably.”

Chapter Four
    I swing the door open to my house later that afternoon and walk inside. My mom is in the kitchen making chocolate chip cookies. The aroma has drifted through the entire house and it smells absolutely amazing. On any other day I would have been all over them, but I have no appetite today.
    I drop my bag on the floor and slump down at the kitchen table.
    “Bad day?” my mom asks as she takes a tray of cookies out of the oven and sets them on the counter.
    “You could say that,” I say, setting my head in my hands.
    “Ah,” she says knowingly, “let me guess, trouble in paradise?”
    I sigh. “Something like