Collide Read Online Free PDF Page B

the bridge of his nose while deep in thought had
cemented the moniker despite the fact that he had switched to
contacts last year.
    “My temper is not that bad!” I said and blew
out an irritated huff. “Have you ever seem me storm off all
dramatic like that?” I asked as I gazed down at my own lunch. I
made a face when I realized that I had completely lost my appetite.
A scratch and tug alerted me to the fact that I was worrying at a
hangnail on my thumb, and forced my fingers to relax.
    “No, you just break the nose of whoever it is
that’s pissed you off,” Ryan said, and I managing to dredge up a
small smile. Ryan was the other sensitive person in our group, the
romantic, if you will. Ryan was the only other person outside of
Maria that I had spent most of my life with. We had met in day care
and bonded over a mutual love of all things fuzzy and fluffy.
    His stared at me for a moment, then asked,
“Are you all right?”
    “I’m all right,” I said, but I could tell
that he didn’t fully believe me. “Jessica, are you ok?”
    Jessica gave me a weak smile, sniffled a
little, and then nodded. “You just don’t think that Maria would
lose her temper at us, you know? It just startled me, that’s
all.”
    I nodded, but my attention had already turned
away from the lunch table and back to the absent member of our
group. I debated with myself as I tried to decide if I should go
and confront Maria, send her a text and see if she’d answer, or
just let it alone the way I had so much else. One look at Jessica’s
upset face decided me, and I swiftly excused myself as I got to my
feet, gathered up my stuff, and headed out the door. As I exited, I
glanced back briefly and jumped a bit when I met Akira’s sharp eyes
from across the room, but I didn’t hold his gaze for long as the
door swung shut behind me.
     
     

Chapter Three

    I couldn’t decide if it was a good thing or a
bad thing that I wasn’t able to locate Maria before my next class.
I had to abandon my search when the warning bell rang and decided
that I would hunt her down in the parking lot after school. I knew
it probably went against what her doctor’s would all suggest; after
all, she had had a “traumatic experience that had resulted in
partial amnesia”, but seriously, enough was enough. There was
something majorly wrong with my friend, and I fully intended to
find out what it was.
    My resolve lasted through fifth period into
sixth, where it was promptly derailed and shoved into the caboose
of my brain by Mr. Miller’s announcement that we were going to be
paired up for a project that we’d be working on for the remainder
of the semester that was going to count 75% of our over all grade.
I wasn’t the only one who stared at him in horror, EVERYONE hated
any type of project, group or otherwise, but group more so because
it almost always meant that one person would be doing all the work
while the other person just made token gestures. Several of my
classmates even groaned.
    “Now, now,” Mr. Miller said after he had
given everyone his own version of The Glare, that one look of death
that any teacher develops in order to get a bunch of rowdy students
to settle down. “I’ve had great reviews of this particular project
from students in the past, and I think you will find it rather
fascinating once pairs are assigned and you hear what the project
is about.”
    “I don’t remember hearing about this from any
of the seniors,” Billy Jones groused from the back of the room, and
his buddies quickly grumbled their own agreements.
    “That’s because the last group of juniors who
did this particular project graduated two years ago. I try not to
do this on back-to-back years, as I like to challenge each junior
class with something a little different. Now, let me assign
partners . . .” another round of loud groans interrupted him.
    “You mean we don’t get to choose for
ourselves?” Sherri Murphy asked. She shot Akira a flirty