Nothing to Lose Read Online Free PDF Page B

friend Johnny, says.
    Victor ignores him.
    “How ’bout your mama, Bird Boy?”
    “Don’t talk about my mother.” But Victor doesn’t know. That’s what I like about the fair. No one knows or wants to know. The only one who knew was Kirstie, and Kirstie isn’t here.
    “Did your mama teach you manners, Bird?”
    “Quit it.”
    “Or did she teach you to fight?” He pushes my shoulder. “Wanna fight, pretty boy? Little boy? I’m ready.”
    I feel my fists clench involuntarily and I raise my arm. I can tell how it would feel, hitting him. Satisfying for a second, fists crashing into his face, not just once, but again and again, hitting him until there’s no hitting left.
    I back away.
    “Just … go over there. Would you, please?”
    I go to close the door. Victor begins to follow me, but something—the look on my face, maybe—stops him.
    “Faggot,” he says.
    I shut the door.
    They stay into the night, their own fight over, concentrating instead on keeping me awake by pounding the trailer. I pull my pillow over my head, but in my mind, I see the photograph of my mother.
    I don’t go out again. Eventually the others come in to sleep. When my alarm goes off at five thirty, I let it ring long enough to wake everyone.

LAST YEAR
     
    After one day in the school cafeteria, I went back to eating by the roach coach with my former teammates.
    Tedder Dutton, a junior jock I didn’t like much, was doing an impression of Miss Hamasaki, our English teacher. Lest the term impression leave anyone thinking of Saturday Night Live or Mad TV , I’ll clarify. This impression consisted entirely of Tedder reading a poem from our English book in this phony accent, pulling his eyes back like a six-year-old pretending to be Asian.
    “The roods are rovery, dalk and deep,” he recited.
    His friends laughed, and Tris said, “You have to wag your butt when you do it.”
    “She doesn’t talk like that,” I said. Then, to Tris, I added, “This is what happens when siblings mate.”
    “Hey, Daye, why do you always bring your lunch?” Tedder demanded. “The smell of peanut butter makes me want to regurgitate.”
    The two players laughed some more. I shrugged. “Healthier, I guess. I could complain that I’m sick of the sound your arteries make when they harden—but I’m too nice.”
    “Right,” he said. “Gotta keep healthy for foot— … why do you have to keep healthy, Daye?”
    I told him to bite me. Dutton was the type of guy who’d let you do his sister if he could think of some way that it would improve his stats (“And if you haven’t seen his sister,” Tris had said). He’d get my position now that I was out. By my definition he should’ve been kissing my ass for allowing him to replace me. But Dutton saw it differently.
    “Can’t believe you ditched the Dolphins like that,” he said.
    “You did great in practice yesterday, Tedder,” Tristan cut in. “Though you could pass to me a few times, instead of grabbing all the glory.”
    “Yeah, right,” Tedder said. “You get glory when you earn it, second string.”
    Glory. There was this scrimmage last year, J.V. versus varsity. It had been third and fifteen, and J.V. was at the forty. The defense bore down on me, and I’d thrown this near-impossible pass to Tris. I could still feel my arm on the follow-through, and Deion Jacobs landing on me. I could hear our side cheering when Tris caught it and ran it in for a TD.
    “Remember that scrimmage last year, Tris?” I said. “I passed to you.”
    Tris grinned. “Yeah, that was cool.”
    “But that was last year,” Dutton said. “This year, we have a way better D. You guys would’ve taken the L-train against this year’s team.”
    “Don’t know about that,” Tris said. “Jackson got, like, huge over Christmas break. He juicin’?”
    “Stephawn Jackson on ’roids?” Dutton looked shocked. “Nah, I think he gained twenty pounds—mostly in his forehead—by doubling up on his Flintstone