Between These Lines (A Young Adult Novel) Read online

  Between These Lines

  by Jennifer Murgia

  Copyright 2013 by Jennifer Murgia

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Angela Llamas

  Published in association with MacGregor Literary, Inc.

  Portland, Oregon

  For Chris ~ who has always known the real me.

  Prologue

  How on earth could I have let things get so screwed up?

  I blew the hair out of my eyes and opened my locker, knowing I couldn’t go back and fix things. Out of the corner of my eye, a flash of white dangled from a slat inside the door. It was probably hate mail from Shane telling me to stay away from Evie. Or worse, from Evie explaining the obvious—that lunch was a mistake, the project was off, and shoving a note in my locker was way easier than facing me.

  I reached for the paper and unfolded it.

  Shellinger’s. Friday. 10 PM.

  This was a joke, right?

  I’d never been invited to one of Jake Shellinger’s weekend bashes before. Make that me and a hundred other kids. Regardless, there was no way I was going to set foot through the door of that party and hang out with them, joke with them, pretend I was one of them.

  I unfolded the paper again and stared at it, seeing it a bit differently than before. Maybe I could live through being in the same room with them, just for one night.

  Maybe it would be worth it, as long as Evie would be there.

  Chapter One

  Chase

  I took my time walking into sixth period, to find Mr. Floyd at the Smart Board, outlining the week’s Social Communications assignment. As usual, Evie Cunningham and Tara Reynolds snuck in ten seconds after the bell, but Mr. Floyd didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he set his marker to rest and turned to us. “Who’s up for a little experiment?”

  The class sprang to life with a unified breath of anticipation. Experiment was a rare word in this class.

  “Professor Coleman and I will be combining a social psychology project with the current English Lit lesson plan.”

  Groans surfaced, while a few faces pinched in confusion, but our good-natured teacher gave a chuckle and dove in to explain. “From now until the end of the marking period, these two classes will be combined and count towards three-quarters of this semester’s grade.”

  More groans.

  “So let’s kick things off before I have a riot on my hands.” Mr. Floyd held his palms out to stifle the overwhelming enthusiasm. “In English Literature you’re discussing the works of poets who have segregated themselves from society. I believe the topic this week is Sylvia Plath. Am I correct?”

  He took his time meandering down the first aisle, amid the muttered acknowledgment that swelled around him, then wove his way up the next to stop in front of Evie. He leaned and tapped his pointer on the paperback resting on top of her notebook.

  “Miss Cunningham, describe, in a word, the emotional state of the poet in question?”

  “Desperate,” she replied in her clear, soft voice.

  “And, Mr. Mitman, if you’re awake back there, another adjective, if you will.” Eyes that held Evie in an ethereal spotlight reluctantly found their way back to me, and my own dropped to study the veneer sheen of my desktop.

  “Misunderstood.” I shifted in my seat then saw Mr. Floyd nod at my answer.

  “Clearly Ms. Plath chose to be of a different mindset. She suffered from manic depression, isolated herself from the world, and became suicidal, trying many attempts to end her life, which she viewed as miserable.”

  Silence filled the classroom as we listened. It was one thing to study poetry, but another to dive into the mind of the poet, and Mr. Floyd had a way of enthralling us.

  “Did she conform to society?” he continued. “No. She played by her own rules. Did society ridicule her for a mental illness they couldn’t understand? No. Even now we seek to dissect her, to understand her pain so that we, as a society, might be able to embrace her and find beauty in her words. This is critical thinking ladies and gentlemen. Do we study the obvious, or do we dig further? Do we dare try and see a little of her in us?”

  A quiet cloud of thought hovered over us. This is what Mr. Floyd did best: he made us think, drawing out all sorts of possibilities like a thick, sticky salve. Of course, a few were immune to the discussions that often took place. Tara Reynolds, for one, found her fingernails entirely more interesting than the tormented soul of a writer.

  “Can you name a piece written by Ms. Plath, Mr. Mitman?”

  My attention immediately snapped back to the moment. I had a number of Sylvia Plath’s chapbooks at home. Her despair had been oddly comforting to me a few years ago. Lady

  Lazarus, The Colossus, Cut, were as familiar to me as breathing, but instead of answering right away, I flipped my pencil and began smudging the smoothness of my desktop with the eraser, suddenly eager to add something unappealing to its unmarred surface.

  Mr. Floyd waited for my answer while my mind turned to the battered paperbacks stowed beneath my bed; to the one that was especially dog-eared and bent, one of its pages folded over in a permanent crease.

  “April 18,” my voice rang out.

  The air felt still. Heads turned, as if connected by a string, to the front of the room, as we waited for our teacher to comment. Only I seemed to notice how Mr. Floyd ate his words, how he empathetically stared at me from behind those wire-rims of his. He cleared his throat. I saw the inconspicuous nod aimed my way then heard the squeaky wheels of the projector as it rolled to the front of the room. The lights above us went out, and an illuminated outline flashed in and out of focus on the drop screen. Notebooks shuffled around me.

  Even in the dark it was hard to ignore her.

  Evie.

  I knew she was trying to understand what had just happened, could feel her chipping away at it. I let my eyes dip to my pencil then I looked back up. Part of me wished I hadn’t. She was no longer turned in her seat, but facing front, scribbling away in her notebook. Tara mouthed something that Evie shook her head to. I stared at the back of her head. She was one of those girls – the kind that got under your skin. In a good way. But I kept that to myself because, as far as I knew, Evie was untouchable.

  Mr. Floyd started talking again and directed our attention to the bulleted items on the transparency, and just like that, it was like nothing ever happened.

  “Our project is one of similarity,” he explained. “You’ll be broken into groups where the main objective is to focus on what’s alike, rather than what’s different. Let’s start with basics.

  Tara and Evie are both female and sit in the front row. Similar, yes?”

  Mr. Floyd nodded, intending to garner a response from the girls.

  “I want you to dig deeper. Discover opinions, attitudes, even habits; as opposed to what lies on the surface. The point is to see the other person as a unique individual, and also one who is much like you. You’ll be expected to spend time with your project partners. Get to know them,

  and you’ll better understand yourselves.”

  Mr. Floyd read off names from his list. Four were assigned to a group, with the exception being the last; a group of three. I rolled my eyes as he included Evie and Tara in one breath then nearly choked as he read the last name. Mine.

  The bell rang and the clamor of squeaking chairs and voices filled the air
as Mr. Floyd raised his voice and continued to give instructions. “Professor Coleman will also be assigning a research project on Sylvia Plath. You’ll meet with him next week for the double class and continue to work with the same study partners for both assignments.”

  I blew the last of the eraser nubs from my desktop, grabbed hold of my books, and stood up after the room emptied to my liking.

  “Chase, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  I nodded, and watched the sympathy on Mr. Floyd’s face bloom into quiet relief that I didn’t hold it against him. I was one of his best students. Sure, I was quiet. I looked like the kid who didn’t care in the back of the classroom half the time. Not many people got that. They saw what they wanted to see, but Mr. Floyd was one of the few exceptions. He understood what April 18th meant to me, how that date would hang over me like a black cloud for the rest of my life.

  I tucked my books beneath my arm. Deep down, I knew this assignment would be more of a test for me. How much would I be willing to reveal about myself, my past, the skeletons in my closet. I’d have to keep the obvious close at hand, because right now there was no way I could let anyone dig too deep. Especially Evie.

  Chapter Two

  Evie

  Tara was in her usual hurry we approached the top of the main staircase. To my right, eyes of former Whitley Prep Headmasters followed me as I descended past their oversized portraits to the glossy black and white marble floor beneath me. The foyer stretched to meet three arched walkways. Tara waited beneath one, impatience etched across her face. Despite the crappy mood I could sense she was in, I took my time. My thoughts were preoccupied, leaving me little time to create a mask she couldn’t see through.

  Chase Mitman’s preference of sitting at the back of my last class was the perfect excuse to turn around and check out the back wall. But there was something even the elusive Chase couldn’t hide. He couldn’t hide how his eyes lit whenever mine met his. They changed. They brightened, deepened, made me weak.

  And I’m pretty sure he knew it.

  “Shane’s not going to like this,” Tara huffed.

  At the mention of Shane’s name, the moment was ruined. Reality was back, and I felt myself pale. “He’s in Debate. Besides, it’s an assigned project. We have to.”

  She murmured something indecipherable. Chase wasn’t the sort Shane and his friends hung out with, and that included Tara, which also included me by default since I was Shane’s girlfriend. And since Shane’s uncle was Headmaster that sort of allowed the world of Whitley to revolve around him.

  Which created a bigger problem. One I couldn’t help. The little crush I had for the bad boy at the back of the room in Social Communications.

  I let out a deep sigh as my feet touched the marble. To make this work, Tara needed to be bribed. I bit my tongue and pulled out my most convincing tone. “So let’s prove Mr. Moody can interact socially. It’s a guaranteed A.”

  Tara stared at me with her usual “you’re an idiot” look on her face. She stared long enough to know I would eventually squirm, and deep down, part of me knew I couldn’t hide anything from her. I feared she knew I looked at the back of the room more often than anyone else, and all that was back there to look at was a half-filled bulletin board.

  A plotting grin bloomed across Tara’s face and before I knew it, she grabbed my elbow, and we were racing down the hallway, passing beneath the arch that led to the science wing and another long row of white lockers.

  “No,” I stopped short and pulled my elbow back, rubbing where she’d held it tight.

  “Yes,” Tara stepped closer and tilted her chin. “You want an A, don’t you Evie?”

  She said it like that’s all there was to it. Just a grade. Nothing more. I stole a peek down the corridor. It was practically empty except for one person, lingering on purpose, staying away from everyone else. And the effect it had on me was like two poles magnetically connected.

  Tara stuck her tongue against her teeth and looked around, “After all, it’s an assigned project. You have to do this.”

  “Like your name wasn’t on that list too.”

  “Don’t try to act like this project means nothing to you, Eves. We both know it’s more than the grade.”

  I stepped away from Tara’s side and proceeded down the hall. My heart was in my throat, but I flipped my hair over my shoulder and marched right up to Chase Mitman as if it was the most normal thing in the world, and began fiddling with the dial on the locker next to his.

  “You lost?” he asked.

  I stared at the locker in front of me, suddenly forgetting why I had walked up to him in the first place. I’d never stood this close to Chase, ever, let alone articulated a single syllable to him.

  I felt sweaty. I felt like walking back to Tara. Then I remembered I couldn’t do that. Tara had more than dared me to approach him, and my fear turned to determination.

  “I thought we could get a head start on the project.”

  His eyes strayed beyond my shoulder and I knew he’d spied the instigator sidekick of mine, smirking somewhere off in the distance. “Yeah, about that,” he turned back to his locker without another look my way. “I work best alone.”

  Tara’s presence burned behind my back and before I could stop myself, the words slipped from my mouth. “We have to work on it together. It’s a done deal.” I concentrated on the dial that spun between my fingers. I closed my eyes and swallowed. It wasn’t my fault that I was here bugging him about the assignment. It’s not like he’d be the one to ask me. What was wrong though was the fact that I was enjoying this—the idea of being paired up with him, the idea of being near him. He smelled good. His starched, white shirt crinkled as he reached into his locker. I felt myself leaning a little closer this time, knowing Tara was undoubtedly enjoying this, which was just the fuel I needed. “So . . . come to lunch with me.”

  There was a hopeful pause as he grabbed the brown lunch bag from the top shelf. “I don’t think so.”

  And then the unthinkable happened. I reached for the dial I’d been playing with, only it was his, and Chase’s hand was still attached to it.

  I pulled my hand away as the red in my face grew to an unbearable temperature and hurried back to Tara, preparing myself for the onslaught of don’t you feel stupid and I told you so she was surely dying to pummel me with. But instead, she looked behind me and rolled her eyes.

  Then the crinkle of a lunch bag broke the silence. “I guess it’s not a bad idea to start that project, after all.”

  My heart leapt and sank at the same time. It leapt because he’d said yes.

  It sank for too many reasons to count.

  Chapter Three

  Chase

  I followed two steps behind, down the hall toward the main foyer, where the smell of biscuits and glazed chicken filled the air, and concentrated on the bag at my side rather than the two girls in front of me. The Monkey Bread I’d been craving all morning was wrapped in wax paper, swinging to and fro, along with whatever else Aunt Claudie decided to surprise me with. Now, as I walked into the crowded dining hall, I wasn’t very hungry anymore.

  Tara pushed the double doors wide open and sauntered in with an aloofness that was all hers. If she wanted a grand entrance, she didn’t get one. But Evie—she was another story.

  Everything always quieted a little whenever she walked in. Not a lot. Not to the point where you heard crickets chirping, but enough to notice something beautiful had just walked into the room. Today was a different story, though. The room hushed like usual, but the crazy thing was, it wasn’t Evie they were interested in, it was me.

  Evie followed Tara up to the counter then turned. “Want a tray?”

  I held up my wimpy lunch bag and swung it to and fro.

  “Suit yourself.” She shrugged.

  I never bought, ever, yet here I was standing in the lunch line with school’s most popular girls. The bag I carried was a beacon, a homing signal, to everyone at the tables that shout
ed that I was out of place.

  “They won’t eat you, so stop acting like you’re part of the meal,” Tara blurted.

  But I knew better than that. They certainly could. Kids were cruel. I grabbed a tray, resting my brown bag on top. The Monkey Bread would have to wait. I couldn’t help looking over my shoulder at the far end of the dining hall. That was where I usually ate. Alone. Away from the drama.

  As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I was beginning to regret my idea of saying yes to Evie.

  “This way,” Tara motioned with the flick of her hand.

  We followed her to a table where Max Decatur and Sienna Warren, close friends of Shane’s, were already seated, and I watched their eyes widen with the realization that I was sitting at, rather than walking past, their table. I flinched a little as Sienna’s nose wrinkled. She looked at

  Max as if he had the answer, but he offered none.

  Tara cleared her throat. “This is Chase. You know Chase, right?”

  Sienna smiled wanly as Max reluctantly offered his closed fist across the table. I tapped mine to it. Tara’s fork jabbed at the food on her plate as if a piece had somehow gotten past the cook and was still alive. “See, one big happy group,” she murmured then inched herself away from my chair.

  “You seem to know Sylvia Plath’s work,” Evie turned to me, ignoring the others.

  I stared down at the tray and slid the food together until it was one big lump in the center of the plate and gave a nod. Inside I was kicking myself—for agreeing to come to lunch, for agreeing to talk about the project, and especially for not saying anything now that we were sitting here.

  Evie had me tongue-tied. It was one thing to look at her, maybe even drool a little, from the back of a classroom, but sitting next to her was way more than I could take. The back of the room called to me. It took every ounce of determination not to pick my tray up and head back there, alone.