Blindsided Read Online Free PDF Page A

Natalie yelled and pushed away from each other. Natalie tried to recall their names.
    “You got to be kidding me, man!” the taller, more slender one yelled. Sheldon, Natalie remembered. That was Sheldon yelling.
    “No, I’m not kidding!” the other replied.
    “You on a diet, JJ?” Sheldon was asking. “What for?”
    JJ was the other boy.
    “What you think I’m on a diet for?” JJ retorted, annoyed.
    So it wasn’t really an argument. Just a loud conversation. Loud teasing. Now that Natalie was getting a better look, she could see that maybe JJ did need to lose some weight. She also noticed he had spilled some ketchup on his shirt. The large red blob and a thin, watery red dribble made it look as though he’d been shot in the chest.
    “No seconds this year,” JJ told Sheldon. He didn’t seem to know about the ketchup stain. “And I’m walking around the track every day.”
    Sheldon folded his arms on the table and dropped his head on them.
    “I am getting a girlfriend this year!”JJ declared.
    Sheldon’s arms and shoulders shook with laughter.
    “What kind of girlfriend will you be wantin’ this year?” Serena jumped in, egging him on.
    “A big girl,” JJ said seriously. “A Christian girl.”
    “Well, I guess that leaves me out,” Serena quipped. “I suppose she has to be a virgin, too.”
    Sheldon laughed harder and Natalie put a hand up to cover her own smile.
    “Now watch,” Serena said quietly to Natalie, “JJ will get up and leave. He can only take so much.”
    But he didn’t leave. Instead, JJ lifted his chin into the air at an angle. He had sunglasses on, so Natalie couldn’t see his eyes. “New girl,” he said.
    Natalie cringed and felt the blood rush to her face.
    “Hey, you—”
    “ Natalie . Her name’s Natalie!” Serena interjected sharply.
    “Natalie,” JJ repeated softly. “I’m sorry. Welcome.”
    “Thank you,” Natalie said.
    “You have a nice voice,” JJ went on. “Do you have a boyfriend, Natalie?”
    What? Was he looking at her as a candidate to be his girlfriend? How embarrassing! And what a personal question. Or was it? The truth was that Natalie had never had a boyfriend and JJ’s question struck at a core fear of Natalie’s. Because who would want to date someone who had trouble seeing?
    “No,” she finally said in a small voice. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
    Sheldon sat up. “She’s too good for you, JJ,” he said, elbowing the boy beside him. “You got to lower your sights, man.”
    “My sights? What are you talking about? You know I ain’t got no sight.”
    Sheldon started laughing. And JJ laughed with him.
    Were they kidding? Did JJ just make a joke about his blindness?
    She turned to Serena for a clue, but the bored expression on Serena’s face hadn’t changed. “Don’t pay no attention to him, JJ,” she said. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
    JJ stopped laughing and stood abruptly. “I don’t want to be late to class,” he said.
    But what about the ketchup? Wasn’t somebody going to tell him about the spill down his shirt? Maybe no one wanted to embarrass him. Natalie watched, uncomfortably, as JJ snapped open his folding cane, picked up his backpack, and left.
    The whole strange scene at breakfast made Natalie even more homesick for her own friends. She couldn’t help but think of them because it was also the first day of classes back at Western Allegany High School. Meredith, Suzanne, and Coralee would be wearing their new jeans and the sandals that all four of them had bought on sale at Target. Natalie could almost feel their first-day excitement, the jokes, the confusion, the lockers slamming shut, the hustle and bustle in the hallways . . . the same hallways she and her mother had been in just a few days ago.
    They had stopped at the high school one morning to pick up Natalie’s transcript from the main office. It was the week before classes started, so the locker-lined halls were empty and spotless,