Hummingbird Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

this. “Fear of Missing Out.”
    I'd nodded. That was it exactly. “It’s lame. I mean, what exactly do I think might happen?”
    â€œOh, I don’t know. Someone interesting might show up.” Toni had raised and lowered her eyebrows. “Someone whose name starts with J , perhaps.”
    Jax. To me, names nearly always had a shape or a texture. I used to think everyone noticed this, but Mom and Toni both looked at me like I was nuts when I tried to explain, years ago, that Toni’s name was square and solid, and Mom’s name, Amanda, was round and as powdery soft as icing sugar. So maybe it was just me. Anyway, Jax was a pyramid-shaped name. Triangular and sharp-edged. The opposite of Dylan, which was sort of floppy and undefined.
    â€œI wonder if Jax has a girlfriend,” I said.
    â€œNot as far as I’ve heard.”
    â€œMmm. Well, it’s not like he’d be interested. I’m probably not his type.” I hoped Toni would argue with me.
    She laughed, but there was something impatient about it. I knew she didn’t like it when I sounded too insecure. Maybe she agreed that I wasn’t the kind of girl a guy like Jax would date. Maybe she even wondered what she was doing hanging out with me herself. I wished I could take back my last words.
    â€œMaybe not,” she said. “But you never know.”
    â€œYou think I’m not then? Not that it matters, but what do you think is his type? I mean, why do you think he wouldn’t be interested?”
    She just shrugged. “I don’t even know the guy, Dylan. But if you like him, go for it. Anyway, lighten up, okay? The party should be fun.”
    I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just felt…flat. Blah. Not even remotely in the mood for a party. Not like Toni, who was fizzing with energy and anticipation. She was champagne and I was…I don’t know. Diluted Kool-Aid, maybe. Or skim milk. Something boring and unappealing.
    When we were younger, Toni and I hadn’t really needed a lot of other friends. We’d played outdoors all summer, practicing on the monkey bars at the park for hours and riding our bikes to each other’s houses. In the winter, we’d holed up in Toni’s parents’ rec room, back before the divorce, and played Dogopoly and Cranium, and designed weird futuristic worlds. Glass domes, underground tunnels, teleportation devices and just-add-water meals. We talked about how scientists would develop replacement body parts, how people would never have to die unless they chose to, how we would live together near the ocean and rescue stray dogs. Toni used to be crazy about dogs. Maybe it was dumb of me, but I’d thought things would go on that way forever.
    Looking back, it seemed like the change had happened almost overnight, the summer before grade eight. Toni’s parents had separated, and Toni suddenly began to transform herself into someone else. She shed the scruffy jeans and started wearing makeup and developed a certain giggling laugh that she only used around boys. Toni and I had always made fun of teenage girls and had sworn we’d never be like that ourselves. I’d seen it closing in around us, in the music and the TV commercials and the girls smoothing on lip gloss in the hallways before class, but I’d really believed we could escape it. I’d believed it right up until Toni changed.
    It wasn’t like I still wanted to play on the monkey bars. I’d have been happy hanging out at home or at the mall with Toni. But she’d had one boyfriend after another since eighth grade. I had tagged along—still Toni’s best friend, but no longer the only one.
    Toni dragged me along to parties, made me one of the group. If it wasn’t for her, I’d probably be a social outcast. She did all the work and I coasted along behind, like a cyclist drafting a truck, sucked along in the slipstream. I should have been