Read Online Fearless by Chris O'Guinn - Free Book Online Page A

think I would befriend someone out of pity? I thought it was obvious that if anything like that ever happened in my life, it would be the other way around.
    I almost asked him why he’d picked me to make friends with, but then I realized that didn’t really matter. Whatever had motivated him to reach out to the class freak, we were friends now. And that helped me realize that nothing really had changed at all. He had cancer, but he was still Liam.
    “What makes you think I like you?” I asked around a smile.
    It hung in the air for a tense second as I waited to see if the joke would flop. The last thing I wanted was to hurt him. My sense of humor was one of the things that got me into trouble with people.
    But when he turned to me, he was grinning. “Oh, I see, now that you’re a star athlete, you don’t have time for us mere mortals.”
    I waved my hand like I was a royal prince and he was a common peasant. “That’s pretty much it.”
    Liam’s face glowed with happiness. “What are you doing after school?”
    “Well, I have this practice thing because some guy I know thought I should get on the swim team.”
    “Smart guy. I’ll come cheer you on.”
    “It’s just practice.”
    “Yeah, but a guy has to support his pal.”
    I hadn’t really thought about practice since finding out about Liam’s illness. Now, though, the very idea of stepping into foreign, hostile territory made me sick with worry. Having a familiar face there might make it more bearable.
    “I’d appreciate it. It’d be nice to have one guy there who won’t laugh at me when I fall on my face.”
    “Just try to avoid doing that.”
    That made me roll my eyes. “Yeah, I’ll give that a shot.”
    I found myself just kind of looking at him, trying to figure him out. He looked like a typical stoner, but he was actually a really cool, decent guy. He had this fantastic, super-positive attitude, even though life had handed him this totally shitty deal.
    “I know, you got questions,” Liam said with the shrug of one shoulder. “But not here, okay? I’m keeping my relationship with Lou a secret for now. After school, I’ll tell you everything.”
    “You don’t have to.”
    “I know. It’s cool.”
    With that more or less settled, I was able to focus on the doom awaiting me. For the rest of the day, my stomach was in knots. I couldn’t eat anything at lunch. I kept thinking of one excuse after another I could use to get out of the stupid thing I’d committed myself to. If it hadn’t been for Liam bucking me up, I probably would have ducked out of practice
    You know that dream where you’re walking around naked? Yeah, that was pretty much what it was like stepping out of the locker room in my Speedo for the first time. The only problem was that I was completely awake.
    When I’d bought the suit, I’d almost asked the lady in the student store where the rest of it was, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t get my joke. No one ever got my jokes, except Liam. I'm too weird. Sometimes I think my brain is just broken.
    I somehow resisted the urge to cover myself with my towel. None of the other guys were acting freaked out by the swimwear. Of course, they’d been on the team longer, so they had gotten used to it by now. Also, every one of them looked better in it than I did. Especially Jimmy—he even had the beginnings of a six-pack. I’d gone to elementary school with Jimmy, but we’d never said a word to each other because he was cool and I was me.
    There were fifteen other guys, and they all seemed good friends. They laughed and shoved at each other the ways guys do. I stood apart, not wanting to intrude. As I’d figured, even on a team I was still going to be the odd man out.
    “All right, settle down,” Lancaster said.
    As far as I could see, that had no effect. Jimmy yanked the back of Chad’s suit down, which caused a small scuffle and a lot of laughter. I scooted further away and checked again to be sure the drawstring on my