Backlash Read Online Free PDF Page B

all the time. Our dads even built a tree fort in the huge oak tree in the Connors backyard when we were younger. It was supposed to be for all of us, but Lara and Bree made it theirs, telling Liam and me that we weren’t welcome because we didn’t know whatever stupid secret passwords they’d made up. Back then, it was Lara and Bree against the two of us despised younger siblings.
    Until Lara started having problems in middle school, and eventually they started hating on each other instead.
    Even after Lara and Bree stopped being friends, Liam and I still hung out. But then once we got to middle school, he started acting all weird, like I’d suddenly developed a highly contagious disease. It’s only recently we’ve started talking again. Still, it’s kind of out of the blue for him to text me.
    It’s only because he asks about me, not just about Lara, that I decide to text him back. Because he cares about how I’m doing, too.
    At least someone does.
Lara awake. Mom’s talking to the police. Me = wanna go home.
Wow. Glad she’s okay. Hope u can go home soon. Do you know what made her do it?
Did u see her FB page? What that guy Christian wrote?
No. Hold on.
    I flip through the pages of a two-month-old People magazine while waiting for him to look up Lara’s page. I skip anything that has to do with real-life stories. The Kelley family has its own People drama going on, thanks. I’ll stick to deciding who wears it better in the Fashion Faceoff.
    My phone buzzes.
I can’t BELIEVE it … Man, people are sick. I’m so sorry.
It’s not your fault.
Well … I’m REALLY sorry for that pic Bree posted on her FB page. I swear. I’m embarrassed we’re related right now.
    Picture Bree posted? What picture?
    I go to Facebook on my phone and look up Bree’s page. When I do, I want to throw up. Or throw the phone away, or, better yet, at someone, namely Bree Connors.
    Bree posted a picture of my unconscious sister being wheeled toward the ambulance. As if that weren’t bad enough, it has seventy-seven likes and, although there are some expressions of concern and sympathy, some of the comments underneath are so awful, so cruel, that they make me hate Bree, hate Liam, hate everyone in the entire world.
Syd?
    I switch off my phone. I don’t care if he’s sorry. I can’t text with him right now. I want to shut off the entire disgusting, mean, insane world.
    And as I think that, I suddenly understand what might have made Lara do it.
    It’s not easy being Lara’s sister. If she weren’t my sister, I probably wouldn’t be her friend. But she is my sister. And nobody, nobody , sister or no sister, deserves what I just saw on that page.

M Y PICTURE of Lara has 104 likes and 15 shares by the time Mom gets home. That’s the most I’ve ever gotten on any picture or status update, ever. Wonder if I should Instagram it? #Call911
    “Tell me everything,” Mom says, putting a bag of groceries on the kitchen counter.
    “How could you stop and wheel a cart around the supermarket like nothing happened?” I ask her. “Aren’t you at all … you know, freaked out by this?”
    Mom has her hand in the bag, starting to unload it, and she stops and gives me an exasperated look.
    “I assume you want dinner, Breanna. And if that’s the case, then someone, namely me, had to get food to make it with.” She takes out a package of chicken. “Unless you have a better idea.”
    Which of course, I don’t, and Mom knows that when I blush and say nothing.
    “Just tell me what happened,” she says.
    “We heard sirens. Like, when I called you. The police car came first. Then the ambulance. All the neighbors were outside the Kelleys’ house watching. Then the medics wheeled Lara out on a stretcher, put her in the ambulance, and drove away with lights and sirens. She tried to … kill herself.”
    “Yeah, and Bree took a picture of her and posted it on Facebook.”
    My brother is standing in the doorway of the kitchen, narrow-eyed, cell