Falling Stars Read Online Free PDF Page B

directions from the other band’s manager,” Crank responded.
    Serena’s eyebrows bunched together.   “I think it’s a good suggestion, Crank.”
    He just rolled his eyes.   “Whatever.   If you think we should go changing stuff at that last minute, then let’s do it.”
    As I recounted the story for Carrie now, two months later, she grimaced. “Crank was jealous?”
    I shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.   He was a complete dick about it, too. And the thing was, there was nothing to be jealous of.   Preston is so not my type. I mean he’s all…preppy…and Harvard…and…”
    Carrie tilted her head and raised one eyebrow. “Nothing like you at all.” Then she smirked.
    I sighed. “All right! So yeah, we had a lot in common. But that didn’t mean Crank got to be a complete shit about it.”
    “What did he do?”

You Wouldn’t Understand (Crank)

    It had been a nice, cool summer. I thought.
    As it turns out, if you’re walking twenty miles through the desert with the rising sun glaring angry rays down on your neck, it feels like you opened a hot oven and walked right in. I don’t think we’d gone more than a mile before I was dripping sweat and my arms were aching from carrying the gas can.
    The plastic gas can. Which probably didn’t weigh more than fourteen ounces.  
    Another thing, just for future reference. If you’re going to walk twenty miles through the desert while wearing combat boots, make sure they have functioning laces. Because what looks cool on stage or walking from the car to the nightclub doesn’t feel so cool when your skin starts to get rubbed raw.
    I guess it wasn’t really desert. Close enough, though. Sand and scrub. Dust. At first glance, it looked like the fields on either side of the road were under cultivation…at least everything grew in more or less neat rows. They don’t do that in nature, do they? I didn’t want to ask Sean. I mean, there’s no stupid questions. But, maybe there are. Anyway. We kept walking.
    It was about half an hour into our walk when Sean spoke. “Can I ask you a question?”
    “Yeah, of course.”
    “Are you and Julia breaking up?”
    “What makes you ask that?”   I wanted to dismiss it.   I wanted to smirk and say, “Oh, hell no, what gives you that crazy ass idea?”   Instead, I felt a hole open up in my chest.
    “You’re always fighting with each other,” he said matter-of-factly. “I don’t understand why. I like Julia.”
    I sighed. And kept walking.
    “I do too, Sean. I mean, I love her.”
    We walked in silence a little further, and then he said, “You should tell her that.”
    “It’s not that simple.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because there’s stuff that happened that you don’t understand, Sean.”
    He kicked the sand and kept walking beside me. “I see. Because: reasons.”
    “ What?”
    He shrugged. “That’s what people always say when they don’t have a rational reason for their behavior. Because: reasons. You’ve got reasons, but you won’t talk about them. Because they don’t really exist.”
    Irritation swept over me. “Or maybe I just don’t want to talk about them, Sean. It’s not really your business. She’s my girlfriend,” I reminded him.
    “And she’s my best friend,” he replied.  
    I swallowed. And kept walking. And sighed. Sean reminding me that she was his best friend was like getting punched in the stomach.   “It’s all confused,” I said.
    “What’s confused? Just be nice to each other.”
    I swallowed. Uncommon wisdom. But how do you get there?  
    “I don’t know if she’ll ever be nice to me again, Sean.”
    “Why not?”
    So I told him, starting from the moment I realized she was on the phone with him three times a day for the two weeks leading up to our departure, the moment that arrogant prick Preston Reeve started hitting on Julia right in front of my eyes on the way from the airport in Vegas, the way they crowded close together during their multiple meetings at the