Read Online Hate List by Jennifer Brown - Free Book Online

friend died…”
    “… not like Valerie shot anybody anyway. She just had Nick do it. And Nick’s dead, so who cares?”
    “Mrs. Tate said arguing wouldn’t solve…”
    “… bad enough that I have to have nightmares every night about it, but to come to class and…”
    “… you saying I liked that Ginny got shot because it was good drama? Are you seriously saying that?”
    “… had been nice to Nick, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Isn’t that the whole point of…”
    “… ask me, he deserved to die. I’m glad he’s gone…”
    “… what do you know about friends, anyway, you loser…”
    It was kind of weird because eventually they were all so busy hating each other, they forgot about hating me. Nobody was looking
     at me. Mrs. Tennille had even sunk into the chair behind her desk and was just silently staring out the window, her fingers
     playing around her collar, her chin quivering just a little.
    To hear the reporters on TV tell it, these guys were sitting around in the cafeteria holding hands and singing “Give Peace
     a Chance” every day. But it wasn’t like that at all. They were at one another’s throats. All the old rivalries, the old jokes,
     the old sour feelings were right there, festering under the plastic surgery and sympathetic head nods and crumpled Kleenex.
    Finally my neck seemed to loosen and I felt able to look around—really look around—at the kids, who were yelling and waving
     their arms. A couple crying. A couple laughing.
    I felt like I should say something, but I didn’t know what to say. To remind them that I wasn’t the shooter would make me
     sound defensive. To try to console somebody would be beyond weird. To do anything would feel like overload. I wasn’t ready
     for this yet and couldn’t believe that I’d ever thought I was. I didn’t have answers to my own questions; how could I possibly
     answer any of theirs? My hand involuntarily drifted to the cell phone in my pocket. Maybe I should call Mom. Beg to go home.
     Beg to never come back. Maybe I should call Dr. Hieler; tell him that, for the first time, he was wrong. I couldn’t make it
     eighty-three minutes, much less eighty-three days.
    After a while, Mrs. Tennille was able to get the class back under control, and we sat there, tension riding above our heads
     like a cloud, while she finished going over the syllabus.
    Slowly, people started to forget I was there. I began to feel like maybe this wasn’t totally impossible, sitting in that desk,
     in that class. In that school.
You’ve got to find a way to see what’s really there, Valerie,
Dr. Hieler had told me.
You’ve got to start trusting that what you see is what’s really there.
    I opened up my notebook and picked up a pencil. Only, instead of taking notes on what Tennille was saying, I began sketching
     what I saw. The kids were in kid bodies, wearing kid clothes, their kid shoes untied and their kid jeans ripped. But their
     faces were different. Where I would normally see angry faces, scowls, jeers, instead I saw confusion. They were all just as
     confused as I was.
    I drew their faces in as giant question marks, sprouting out of their Hollister jackets and Old Navy T-shirts. The question
     marks had wide, shouting mouths. Some were shedding tears. Some were tucked in on themselves, looking snaillike.
    I don’t know if it’s what Dr. Hieler had meant when he told me to start seeing what’s really there. But I know that drawing
     those question marks did far more for me than counting backward from fifty ever could have.
     

MAY 2, 2008
7:37 A.M .
“Oh my God! Somebody! Help!”

     

    Nick and I plunged in
through the school doors, the wind taking hold of mine and shutting it abruptly behind me. As always, the hall was packed
     with kids hustling to their lockers, griping about their parents or teachers or each other. Lots of laughter, lots of sarcastic
     grunts, lots of lockers slamming—early morning noises that are just