Connection (Le Garde) Read Online Free PDF

already?” I started to put away my books. Who would have thought you could lose track of time while doing homework? Our knowledge combined together, though, made the homework interesting rather than boring. “I should go. My mom will start to worry. I told her I’d be home by now.”
    “ Want me to give you a ride?” Aaron asked, cleaning up his things.
    I hesitated. I didn’t want to be too late, but another ride with Aaron? A lecture from my mom, or another twenty minutes with him? It wasn’t him , it was us, collectively, that made me uncomfortable. “Okay, sure,” I said reluctantly.
    “ You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Aaron stood up and swung his backpack on his shoulder. I could feel his hurt like it was my own.
    Gosh, how did I ever do this before? At times, it felt as natural as breathing, and other times, like right now, I swore I’d do anything to get rid of it. “No, it’s fine,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I’d like a ride.”
    We walked downstairs, both of us checking out a book—okay, I checked out two—and we went to his car in the lot. “Mitch never uses this thing?” I asked.
    “ Not before seven o’clock,” Aaron said before ducking inside and unlocking the door for me. Once I got in, he added, “Well, he picks up applications every now and then.”
    “ He still doesn’t have a job?”
    “ No, not yet.” Aaron started the ignition. A classic rock station came on, and he turned it down before pulling out of his spot. The Who played quietly as he left the library parking lot.
    After a moment, for lack of something better to say, I asked about his older sister, Tara.
    “ She’s fine,” he said with a shrug. “Living in San Francisco with her boyfriend.”
    “ Oh, when did she move there?” I’d liked Tara. Well, not in middle school, when she used to think we were the most annoying people on the planet. But by the time she graduated and we went into high school, she’d chilled out.
    “ Last summer. She visited for Christmas, of course. I was thinking about staying with her over Spring Break.”
    “ Hey, that’s weird, Steven and I were going to go to San Francisco over Spring Break. We were going to visit his cousin and hang out for a few days.” I’d actually been trying to talk my mom into it. I think she was going to let me because she liked Steven and she was starting to trust me a little bit more. She wouldn’t let me get rides home with friends after school, but she’d let me go out of town for a few days with my senior boyfriend. Yeah, I didn’t get it, either.
    The news disconcerted Aaron. He just nodded and said, “That’s cool.”
    We fell silent for a moment, and I wasn’t sure what to say. He was thinking about me and Steven, wondering if we’d had sex. I crossed my arms and stared out the window. “That’s none of your business.”
    “ What?” Aaron asked.
    A small part of me was aware that that was another very specific thought—one that reminded me of the other day at the lacrosse game. But the rest of me was warm with indignation.  “I said it’s none of your business whether we’ve had sex or not. And if you’re thinking about it because of what Jordan said—”
    “ What?” Aaron snapped. “Of course not!”
    I didn’t think he was lying, but we’d lied to each other before and gotten away with it. “You could just leave a huge box of condoms on my desk, if you’re so concerned.”
    “ Anna,” Aaron said, stung. But still nothing compared to how I felt when I opened the neatly-wrapped present and the things fell out, all over my desk, into my lap. “It was just a simple thought. It had nothing to do with the shit Jordan said about you.”
    I let out a shaky breath. “Fine. I’m sorry.”
    “ And I had no idea about that box,” Aaron added quietly.
    “ But you didn’t do anything about it, either,” I replied, my eyes fixed on the window. I didn’t really see the buildings we were driving past, the cars