As Simple as Snow Read Online Free PDF Page A

one of the players. You can see the entire stadium watching the ball, and there’s Bruno, the only one perfectly still, staring.”
    “Why’s he the only one?”
    “You’ll have to watch it to find out,” she said. “Come on, let’s go make some Brunos.” She jumped up and grabbed me by the hand, and we walked down the steps to sit in the front row. Now everyone was watching.
    “What’s it feel like to be the center of attention?” she said.
    “Let’s go back up where we were.”
    “Relax. Enjoy the game.”
    I looked back up into the stands. No one seemed to be staring, until you got to the place where we had been sitting. All of Anna’s friends were there, looking right at me.
    “They don’t look happy.”
    She laughed again. “Do they ever? Forget it. Pay some attention to me for a change. It’s a date, remember?”
     
     
     
    At halftime I went to get us something to drink at the concession stand behind the bleachers. “You’ll be here when I get back?” I said.
    “I won’t make any promises.”
    I waited on line and wondered how many people had noticed Anna and me together. No one said anything to me and no one appeared to be paying any more attention to me at all. It was a little disappointing. I bought a box of popcorn and a couple of large cups of soda. It was hard to carry everything with the splint on my finger, and I was sure that something was going to spill before I could make it to my seat.
    When I got to the walkway above our section, I noticed that Bryce Druitt was sitting next to Anna, in my spot. I wanted to wait and watch them. I couldn’t see his face, but Anna was looking at him with concentration and affection; it was an intimate look that made me suddenly jealous. I also became aware that the rest of the Goths were watching me as I stood in the walkway, so I moved down the steps toward my seat.
    Bryce stood up and passed me on the steps without saying a word to me, but I could hear a few of the parents in the stands speak to him. “We could use you out there, son.” “It’s a shame you’re not playing.” Things like that.
    Anna took a cup of soda from me and I sat down. “Bryce wants us to go sit with them,” she said, “but I told him to get his own date.”

notes
    I wasn’t popular, but I didn’t think I was unpopular. I didn’t think anyone even paid that much attention to me. I was never in anyone’s thoughts or opinions, at least that’s what I had believed. Anna changed all of that. We became something of a scandal, the talk of the school.
    We both got notes in our lockers on the same day, the Tuesday after the football game. It was the same message for both of us: Stay away from each other. “What are you thinking?” That’s how my note started. It was handwritten on lined notebook paper. It was sloppy, as if written by a child, or someone using the wrong hand. “Stay away from that witch. You don’t know what trouble you are in for. What do you know about her? She will fuck you up. Take it from someone who knows.”
    “This is for your own good. Stay away from that geek. You can’t trust him. He’s a liar. He will hurt you.” That’s what her note said. It was typed on plain white paper.
    I had an idea who had written both of them, but I wanted to find out for sure.
    “Don’t worry about it,” Anna said. “I get notes all the time. Just ignore it, and it will take care of itself.”
    She didn’t wait for me after school. I was walking home when I saw her in the passenger seat of Bryce’s car.
     
     
     
    At school the next morning all the talk was about Bryce Druitt. He had been in a serious accident the night before, slamming his Intrigue into the side of the northern bridge. They said that the car bounced off the bridge and spun down the bank, and almost went into the river. Bryce was taken to the hospital. Luckily he had only a broken leg. I didn’t particularly care about Bryce before, but I wouldn’t have wished that on him, not