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  “She said Natalia’s coming back to school on Monday,” Chastaine said. “We should try harder to be her friend, you know? She’s part of our group, and she’s nice. Sometimes she’s hard to talk to, but that doesn’t mean we should just ignore her.”

  “Yeah, I agree. She’s only hard to talk to because sometimes she doesn’t process things right. She told me it doesn’t get from her ears to her brain right.”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “I wonder if Mr. Houseman could explain how to work around that with her. If she keeps coming to support group, we want to make sure she’s comfortable and understands everything.”

  “Good idea. Except then one of the teachers would know what we’re doing.”

  She shook her head. “We wouldn’t have to tell him why we’re talking to Natalia. Just that we want to learn if there’s a way to make sure she feels included when we do talk to her, or a way to make it easier for her to take it in.”

  “Okay.”

  “Did you understand the math assignment for tonight?”

  “Kind of.” Math was one of my best subjects, so I’d understood the assignment just fine, but for some weird reason, I didn’t want to admit that to Chastaine. That didn’t make sense either. She’d told me one of the things she liked about me was that I was smart.

  “I feel weird right now,” she said.

  I looked at her. “Weird how?”

  “Talking to you.” She sat up. “Usually I’m really comfortable with you, but right now I feel like we’re just saying stuff to say it. I’m not exactly uncomfortable. I just don’t know what to say. Most of the time when we’re together, we’re talking about clothes or our friends or stuff, and I don’t want to talk about any of those things right now.”

  “Yeah.” Now that she mentioned it, I realized I felt kind of the same way. Since she and I had become friends, I hadn’t had trouble talking to her, but now my mind was pretty much blank.

  “That’s why I’m kind of worried about us breaking up,” she said. “Like, if we can’t sit here and talk, maybe it’s a bad thing.”

  “Maybe.” I wanted to reassure her, but I didn’t know how to. “Maybe it’s just my fault. I mean, things have been weird for me for the past couple of weeks.”

  “That wouldn’t explain why we can’t talk.” She hesitated. “I don’t usually have feelings for people. I mean, I like them or I don’t, but that’s it. I think it’s different with you, though.”

  I didn’t have a clue how to respond to that, because I wasn’t totally sure what she meant. If she was trying to say she loved me, I definitely didn’t have a problem with it, but I didn’t want to assume.

  “You’re the first person I’ve actually gone out with,” I said. “I mean, I sort of went out with someone in middle school, but that doesn’t really count. It only lasted about a month, and I wasn’t really interested in him anyway. It was more that I was supposed to have a boyfriend, so I had one.”

  “Yeah, I get it.” She ate a couple of chips.

  I was kind of confused about where the conversation was going. She said she didn’t want to break up, but she also said she wasn’t comfortable with me. She didn’t like being exclusive with people, but she liked being exclusive with me.

  I was getting mental whiplash from trying to figure it out, so I decided I was better off not trying anymore. She would say what she meant eventually. I hoped.

  She didn’t say anything else, though. She pushed the chips out of the way, put her arms around me, and started kissing me.

  It felt amazing. Even better than the times we’d kissed before. Kissing her was one of my favorite things anyway, but this was different. More intense. Like it meant something more than it had all the other times.

  I didn’t want to think about it too much. I analyzed everything, but kissing wasn’t something you were supposed to analyze.

  We lay down, still kissing, and I had about two seconds of thinking “Wait, we can’t” before I told my brain to shut up. I wanted to see what was going to happen.

  When she moved her hands, I froze. Not because I didn’t like where she was touching me, but because I liked it a lot. More than I could handle right then.

  Chastaine pushed my shirt up and touched my bare skin, and I jumped. She pulled back fast and stared at me. “I’m sorry.”

  “No. It’s okay.” My heart was racing and I had a little trouble catching my breath, but I definitely didn’t consider those bad things. “I just… I don’t know.”

  “It was good,” she said.

  “Yeah. Definitely.” I smiled, mostly because she looked kind of scared, and I didn’t want her to worry that she’d done something wrong. “No experience, remember? Like, you’re the first person I ever kissed, at least that I wanted to kiss, and now I want to do other things, but I don’t know if I really want to. If that makes sense.” I knew damn well it didn’t. It didn’t even make sense to me.

  She smiled back. “I kind of get it. We’re cool. If you want to do stuff, we can, but we don’t have to. I’d rather just kiss you than go out and have sex with any of the guys I used to hook up with.”

  “Okay.” I blushed again. I didn’t know if she really meant what she said, but she definitely sounded like she did.

  “Don’t sweat it,” she said. “I like you. I like sex, too, but that isn’t the only reason I spend time with someone. You should know better by now.”

  “I do know.” Just because I felt like it, I kissed her cheek. And then I took a chance. “So are you saying you love me or something sappy like that?”

  “Pretty much, yeah.” She laughed. “I’m not sappy, though. Just happy.”

  “Same here.”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon snuggling. We kissed more, too, but that was it. It was fine with me. I liked kissing, and I figured it wouldn’t hurt to make sure I was really good at it before we moved on to anything else.

  It took me a little while to realize this was the first time in over a month I’d felt completely relaxed and happy. I’d been busy with school, trying to keep my grades up so my parents wouldn’t get on my case. I’d been trying to keep up with the drama club, though I hadn’t been to the last two meetings. That probably wasn’t a good thing, but I figured if it mattered, someone would have said something to me.

  I’d been hung up on the numbers on the scale and on the size tags of my clothes, and on trying to hide myself in clothes that were too big so no one would notice. I’d never been happy about my weight, but everyone else had acted like I was fine the way I was, so I’d pretended I agreed with them. Plus I liked food, and it was hard to do anything about my weight if I ate all the time. Once I’d figured that out, I’d spent a lot of time figuring out what not to eat.

  Pretty much since Christmas break, I’d been stressed about almost everything, and that had kept me from enjoying much of anything. And I hadn’t even noticed until now.

  “What are you thinking about?” Chastaine asked.

  “Stuff that I probably shouldn’t be.” I sat up and drank some of my water, which had gotten warm while we lay there. I was thirsty enough not to care. “Do you think I worry too much?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not in your brain.” She sat up too. “Do you think so?”

  “Probably.” I didn’t want to unload everything on her, but it started coming out anyway. “School. Grades. Drama club, which is going to be even harder now because I’ll have to avoid Nathan. Being fat. Being sick. The support group. You and me, and coming out to my parents and your parents and who knows who else.”

  “Whoa. Slow down.” She put her arm over my shoulders. “It’s okay. Everyone has a lot of stuff going on. But yeah, to answer your question, it does sound like you’re worrying too much. Or at least worrying about too much. And this might piss you off, but not eating probably doesn’t help you deal with things.”

  “Yeah, not so much.” I’d had enough health classes in school to know that when someone’s blood sugar was down, they could get c
ranky and have trouble focusing. I hadn’t completely made the connection to the stuff I was dealing with, but all the meals I skipped were probably a big part of why I’d felt so irritated lately, not to mention the headaches and feeling like my brain was fogged in.

  I wasn’t sure it mattered. Being thin and staying that way was important. But at least now the way I’d been feeling made sense.

  “That’s another reason maybe you should eat more?” Her voice went up on the last word, making it a question. “If you’re stressing about things, it’s easy to eat too much sometimes. I do that. But if you aren’t eating enough, it might make the stress worse.”

  “Maybe. I’ll talk to my counselor about it.” I wasn’t ready to give up my diet entirely. I still had weight to lose, as far as I was concerned. But if eating a little bit more would keep my weight going down while letting me concentrate better and not feel like I couldn’t handle my life, it would probably be a good thing.

  “You can think about the good things too,” she said. “Your family loves you.”

  “I wonder if that’s true about my parents sometimes,” I said.

  “Parents are complicated, but you said they accepted you coming out. That’s pretty huge.” She pulled the bag of chips over to herself and ate a couple. “They were worried enough about you eating to get you into counseling. And Evan and your aunt love you.”

  “True.” Sometimes I didn’t know how I would deal with anything if it wasn’t for Evan and his mom.

  “So what’s another good thing?” she asked.

  I laughed. “Looking for a compliment?”

  “Maybe.” She smiled. “I hope I’m a good thing for you. You are for me. If you, Evan, and Guillermo hadn’t had my back for these past few months, I don’t know if I would have been able to get through all the shit from reporting Jim. Then again, if it hadn’t been for Guillermo, I wouldn’t have reported him in the first place.”

  “You are a good thing for me.” I paused. “And reporting Jim was a good thing for you, in a way, because you made sure he wouldn’t be able to do it to anyone else. Plus, even though Maryellen had problems, she got justice too.”

  “Yeah.” She frowned. “I didn’t think about it that way. I was only thinking she wouldn’t have tried to kill herself if she hadn’t reported him.”

  “You don’t know that, though. She might have done the same thing if she’d kept it to herself, because eventually she might not have been able to handle remembering it.”

  “This is why you’re a good thing for me.” She gave me a hug. “Yeah. You’re right. So see? There are good things. And stress goes away eventually.”

  “Usually.” I ate a chip. “Thanks for listening. I was afraid I’d sound too negative.”

  “It’s okay to be negative sometimes,” she said. “Speaking of negative, I think I just heard a car door, which either means Mom and Dad are home or Andy’s friends are gone. Want to go downstairs and see?”

  “Sure.”

  We gathered up our trash and left her room. I felt better now that I’d gotten some of the stressful crap out of my head, and especially now that Chastaine had pointed out some more positive things. Everything wasn’t magically going to turn awesome. I still had my parents, school, and all the other stuff going on. But things might at least be okay. I could deal with that.

  Keep reading for an exclusive excerpt from

  Boots and Tees

  Deep Secrets and Hope:

  Book Five

  By Jo Ramsey

  When Jim Frankel looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see a sixteen-year-old boy. He sees a monster.

  Weeks after being released from a month in juvenile detention, Jim is still trying to come to terms with the realization that he raped two girls. He believed sex with Chastaine and Maryellen was consensual—until the day he was arrested. Now he’s served his time as far as the law is concerned, but time will never erase Jim’s knowledge that he’s no better than the man who molested him at age six.

  With both his parents unwilling to take him in, Jim has moved from Massachusetts to Michigan to live with Delia, his father’s cousin—a woman Jim didn’t know existed until she offered him a home, a job, and a chance at a new start. Jim spends his time helping Delia at her art supply shop and trying to avoid other people who might have somehow learned of his crime. When Jim meets Man-Shik Park, he can’t accept Manny’s friendship. But will Jim’s attempt to push Manny away lead to the end of his new life before it’s even begun?

  Coming Soon to

  http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

  FROM THE mirror above the bathroom sink, a monster stared back at me. The same way he had every single morning since January.

  I ran a comb through my hair, trying to stop it from sticking up too much. I didn’t really care how I looked, but I had to spend the day working at the shop my guardian owned. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on her customers.

  “Jim, it’s time to go,” Delia said from right outside the door. “Are you almost ready?”

  “Yeah.” I dropped the comb into my basket on the shelf above the sink, careful not to glance in the mirror again.

  I opened the door. Delia stood right in front of me, arms folded. She wrinkled her forehead, and the lines around her mouth deepened. I would have thought she was ticked off except for the concern in her eyes. She wasn’t mad. She was worried I’d done something to hurt myself, the same as every time I was out of her sight for more than a few minutes.

  No surprise there. A month ago when I’d shown up at her door, I wanted to die. Some days I still did. I’d lost my family, my friends, and my home back in Massachusetts, and I was stuck living in Michigan with a relative I hadn’t known existed until she offered to take me in.

  Other than Delia, no one would care if I died. But I’d decided I should stay alive. Dying would have been too easy. Chastaine, Maryellen, and Evan all hated me for what I’d done to them. Living while knowing that was exactly what I deserved.

  “You took long enough,” Delia said.

  “Yesterday you said I looked like a slob.” I was stuck in the doorway until she moved because the hallway was too narrow for me to get past her. I would have had to actually push her, and there was no way in hell I would put my hands on someone again. “I was trying to do better today.”

  “Okay.” She went back up the hall toward the front door. “Come on. We’re going to be late.”

  I put on the work boots I kept beside the door and followed Delia outside to her beat-up four-wheel-drive truck. The snowbanks beside the driveway were taller than the truck, even though it was April. Back in Boston the trees had probably started sprouting leaves and the ground was bare.

  Here by Lake Michigan, ice still covered some of the lakes and ponds, and I couldn’t see a bare patch of grass anywhere. And an icy knife of wind cut right through my corduroy jacket.

  Fortunately the heater in the truck worked great. Hot air blasted us by the time we hit the trailer park exit. Delia turned onto the main road toward town, and I stared out the window at trees and roadkill as we drove in silence.

  Finally Delia cleared her throat. “You have therapy this afternoon. One o’clock.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t have much else to say. Therapy was part of my probation, so it wasn’t like I had a choice. My only problem was they’d given me a guy therapist, and he kind of creeped me out. Hopefully today wouldn’t be so bad.

  “You were late last week,” Delia said.

  “I fell. Ludington doesn’t exactly do a banner job of clearing sidewalks.”

  “They do fine.” Delia glanced at me. “Therapy is probably about as far from your favorite thing as you can get, but that doesn’t excuse you giving me attitude. Be on time for your appointment today.”

  “Okay.”

  A little later we pulled into the parking lot near Delia’s art shop. Once we went inside, I started unpacking the shipment we’d gotten the day before. We probably wouldn’t have any customers. Mos
t days we were lucky if one or two people came in. Delia said it would improve once tourists arrived along with spring weather, but for now the shop was pretty dead. The whole town kind of was.

  With so few customers, Delia easily could handle the shop by herself. The only reason she even had me working for her was because I refused to go to school. I wasn’t a dropout or anything. As soon as I got settled, I planned to take the GED test. But I damn sure wasn’t ever going to walk into a high school again.

  I’d agreed to work for her because it let me feel like I was earning the money she spent to take care of me, instead of sponging off her. Even if I didn’t do much, at least I was trying.

  The first couple of packages held sketchbooks and paint sets. Kneeling beside the pile of boxes, I sorted the books by size and the paints by how many colors the sets contained, piling them on the floor because I had nowhere else to put them.

  When I opened the third box, my heartbeat sped up. Colored pencil sets. Nice ones, ones that artists would use.

  Ones identical to the set he had given me when I was six. Right before the first time he hurt me. He said letting him do what he wanted was my price for the pencils.

  My hands shook. I backed away from the box as his face flashed through my mind. I bit my lip hard so I wouldn’t puke.

  My mother’s boyfriend. No matter how hard I tried, I could never forget his face. Could never forget the things he did to me while he and Mom dated. Mom didn’t know about those things. No one did except me.

  And him, if he was still alive. I hoped he wasn’t.

  Then again, just like me, maybe he deserved to live knowing he’d destroyed someone’s life. If he cared.

  For years I’d pretended nothing had happened. And then Chastaine and Maryellen said I’d raped them. They hadn’t said no. I didn’t force them.

  But they hadn’t said yes, either. And when the cops came to my house and arrested me, and I found out what Chastaine and Maryellen had said, I knew.