Read Online The Predicteds by Christine Seifert - Free Book Online

not my type. I’d wager money that his mother worships the ground he spills corn nuts and Mountain Dew on. “Hey,” I say.
    â€œCome on,” Dizzy says. “I’ll take you to Brooklyn and the other girls.”
    Sam holds up a Miller Lite in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. “Which one?” he says to me. I point to the Coke, and he tosses it to me. “Hope to see you again, Daphne,” he says and smiles broadly.
    Dizzy giggles as we walk away. She grabs my arm. “He likes you,” she whispers.
    â€œGreat,” I whisper back sarcastically.
    She leads me to a group of girls who are standing around someone’s open tailgate. “ Hola, chicas! ” Dizzy yells. Some of the girls run to hug her, like they haven’t seen her for weeks, when in reality, she’d only walked away for a few minutes.
    Lexus Flores, the girl with the shiny cap of hair, gives me a tiny wave. “You look hot, Dizz,” she says. “Did I say that already?”
    Dizzy does an exaggerated model pose. “This old thing?” she says with mock dismissal. She’s wearing a tight, short black skirt, a billowy pink sleeveless top with a clunky black necklace, and black lace-up boots with super high heels that she’s tottering in. Most of the other girls are wearing jeans.
    Cuteny—the petite girl with two blond pigtails whom I also met in the library—pretends to bow down to Dizzy. “Bestow upon me your fashion sense, Dizz.”
    Dizzy waves it all away with one hand, though it’s obvious that she’s delighted by the attention. Brooklyn, the tiara girl, is there too. “Hi,” she says. “Have you met Ruth and Stephie?” She points at two of the other girls, a tall one wearing a soccer sweatshirt and a shorter one clutching a tube of lip gloss that she applies and reapplies to her already shiny lips.
    â€œWe saw you talking to Sammy, Dizz. What’s going on there?” This comes from Cuteny.
    â€œNada,” Dizzy says. “He wasn’t even remotely interested in me. Not when Daphne here is around. You should see the way he looked at her!”
    Everyone yells, “ Woooo ,” at the same time, the way that fourth graders do when they see people kissing.
    â€œSam’s just friendly,” Brooklyn says. “He’s not interested in you.” Behind her, Dizzy mouths at me, She wants him.
    â€œI’m not really looking for a relationship anyway,” I tell Brooklyn.
    â€œGood,” she says firmly. She turns around to face the lake until chatter resumes. Everyone but me is deep in the middle of a conversation about whether it’s appropriate to wear pajamas in public when Brooklyn yells, “Oh my god!”
    We all turn to look. “What?” Dizzy asks urgently.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” Lexus chimes in.
    â€œThere she is! I didn’t think she’d come. Poor thing.” Everyone stares toward the bank of the lake, me included. Two shadowy figures are standing side by side, passing a cigarette between them.
    â€œIt’s January,” Cuteny says quietly.
    Oh , the others say under their breaths, much the way they might react if they’d just come across a squashed puppy on the highway.
    When she moves under a streetlight, I see that it is January. She’s wearing the same basic getup she had on that day in the library, except she has some kind of weird, cape-like sweater over it all. Next to her is a short, rodent-like kid with a pale blond mustache threatening to overtake his top lip. I know him from one of my classes. He’s Nate Gormley, one of those outcast kids who seems to always be smoking or skulking around, making you think he’s just done something illegal.
    â€œPoor thing,” Lexus also says. “She really deserves our pity.”
    â€œShe’s the sister of the shooter,” Ruth tells me.
    â€œI know,” I say. I study January in the