Here Lies Bridget Read Online Free PDF Page B

valentines over the years.
    Lying on the f loor next to him were several failed attempts.
    I remember the validation of my suspicions that it was he who had been writing them feeling like a victory.
    Snatching the card from his lap, I ran out of the cubby room shouting “Brett loves Miche-elle” in that singsong voice strictly used in this particular brand of torture. Everyone’s head had shot up, and I read the poem aloud.
    Though my love goes unrequited
    I’ll love you beyond when the pigs are f lighted.
    Though I may be a snowball, and you the heat I’ll melt with you if you stay as sweet.
    You are Michelle, my belle,
    And without you, this place would be…
    Brett would later insist that he hadn’t intended to put hell at the end of the poem, but was going to somehow rhyme dwell.
    But to us, it might as well have been written there.
    None of us knew the real meanings behind the words. Even so, the class got what the poem meant: it meant that Brett wanted to be K-I-S-S-I-N-G Michelle. Sitting in a tree, if you went by our prediction.
    Brett had stayed in the cubby room the entire time I read 3 7
    it, and the only other person, besides him and our dimwitted teacher, not joining in the roar of laughter was Michelle. She had turned a deep shade of red and then run to the bathroom.
    Brett went to the office and got picked up early that day.
    All the while, our teacher handed out bags of heart-shaped candies, an uncomprehending smile on her face.
    A few years later, when we all entered middle school, Brett had come in with a seriously misguided attempt at dyed black hair, which had come out a sort of awful, metallic blue, and a newfound interest in all things rebellious. He didn’t start dressing normally again (i.e., not wearing the goth-style pants that looked like an entire f lap of a circus tent had been stitched together) and stop skipping school until tenth grade. That was also when he started obsessing about the grades he couldn’t seem to keep up very easily.
    Judging by the way Brett never spoke to Michelle again and instead gazed at her every chance he got, I was pretty sure he still wanted to sit in a tree with her. Lucky for me, his expression when I said her name removed all doubt from my mind.
    “What about Michelle? What do you mean you’ll trade her?”
    “I’ll get you a date with her if you give me the answers.”
    He hesitated. I saw something that looked like the tiniest bit of consideration in his eyes. I jumped at it.
    “Come on, Brett, it’s totally worth it. It’s not like we’ll get caught. And, be real, when else are you going to have a chance with Michelle?” He looked a little offended and, for some reason I could not imagine, amused.
    I would have felt bad saying that he didn’t have a shot with her except that it was true. And just because I pointed out the obvious didn’t mean it was my fault that he never would have asked her out.

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    P A I G E H A R B I S O N
    “It’s not right, you can’t expect to just trade her like money or something.” He seemed to give himself an idea. “Here, just ask her to talk to me. I’ll ask her out myself.”
    Ha! He was making this way too easy.
    “So we have a deal.” It wasn’t a question. I wanted him to feel like he had already agreed. “She’ll sit with you Monday at lunch.”
    I snickered to myself and walked past him to the cafeteria.
    But as soon as I walked away, Liam loomed in my mind again, removing any trace of laughter.
    I stayed quiet throughout the lunch period, ignoring the gossip Jillian was imparting to Michelle. Instead of participat-ing, I spent the whole period looking through my Allure magazine and glancing at Liam as furtively and often as possible.
    He was about six foot three, his body lean and toned. His hair was the dark, shiny brown that you might see in a shampoo commercial, and reached down just past his dark, straight eyebrows. His eyes, though I couldn’t see them from where I sat, I knew to be the