As I Am Read Online Free PDF Page B

book. “You should probably let me go so I can go harass that poor, unsuspecting boy,” I tell her.
    “You really are the best sister ever. You know that, don’t you?” Addy says sweetly to me.
    “Yes. I’m awesome.” I smile at her, feeling the love you can only feel from your sister.
    Addison saunters away, breezing by Miller with her best sex-on-two-legs stride , but Miller doesn’t flinch. It’s so weird. It’s almost like watching trains derail. You can’t believe it’s happening because it all seems so unreal, but yet, there it is.
    After Addy walks past Miller and gets through her huff of disappointment, I continue to watch him. Obviously I noticed him when he arrived today, but this is the first time I’ve really, really looked at him. His tattoos were initially a distraction, mainly because he’s the only one here with any visible ones. Now I have this unreasonable urge to kneel down next to him and extend his arm out just to examine each one.
    He’s working feverishly in his book. I can’t tell if he’s writing or drawing because his pencil is moving so fast. His head tilts from side to side as he works, which makes me lean closer to my thought that he’s drawing. I wonder if he’s sketching out new tattoo ideas.
    My staring finally catches up with me when Miller breaks his own trance and looks up at me. Neither of us moves or averts our eyes from each other and an odd feeling comes over me. I can’t put my finger on it, but it seems different. I’m about to take a breath and follow through with my task for Addison when he smiles. Like, genuinely smiles. It’s not condescending or insincere. He doesn’t even look annoyed at my rude staring. It’s a real smile. This feeling I know I’ve never had, and I internally chastise myself for having and enjoying it. It’s the feeling that I just got something from a boy that my sister didn’t.
    Before I can even reciprocate the smile or take a step forward, Mr. Fellows slides into my view. I don’t know where he came from, just that one minute I was having a surreal moment with Miller Conrad and the next I’m staring at a scruffy middle-aged man.
    “Kinley! Mary and I are so excited to have you back!” he says with a huge smile.
    “Oh, um … thank you! I’m really glad to be back. I had a great time with the kids last summer,” I tell him, stumbling over my words. Mr. Fellows is standing just a little too close so I do my best to take a small step back and pretend I’m looking for something in my camera case. Mr. Fellows is awesome, but he has one of those off-putting appearances. He looks like your creepy uncle who you only see at Thanksgiving … the one whose hazy line of boundaries you tolerate. On the other hand, personality-wise, he’s like your cool uncle that you only see once a year who covers for you with your parents while you do stuff you probably shouldn’t be doing, like hanging around a bonfire all night drinking.
    “Speaking of cameras,” he says , pointing to my bag. “I was wondering if we could give you a bit of a different job assignment this summer. We want to do a new brochure for the camp and have a bigger feature of the scholarship kids in it as well as on the website. I’m not going to use the photographer we’ve used in the past. They could only come a few days out of the whole summer, so they were missing so many of the great spontaneous moments we have here. So … Mary and I were talking and we wondered how you would feel about being the official Camp at Lake Hollis photographer?”
    “What? Are you kidding me? You want to pay me to take pictures … all summer?” Now I really am taken back. This is amazing! More than I could have ever dreamed of!
    He smiles and laughs at my astonishment. “Yes, Kinley, I do ! Mary and I loved the prints you gave us last year, and I lost count on the number of emails we got from parents thanking us for having a professional photographer on staff!”
    “Oh my gosh, Mr.