Shades of Simon Gray Read Online Free PDF

fun of the film. That was what the two of them usually did when they watched these old movies. But on this day Simon wasn’t playing, and Liz could tell by the odd expression on his face that he had something on his mind. He hadn’t even teased her about her hair, which in a fit of PMS frenzy she’d taken a pair of scissors to the day before, hacking her long dark tresses into short uneven layers. She left the results tangled and uncombed, as if she’d just rolled out of bed. And truth be told, she was rather pleased with the results. But Simon didn’t even notice.
    Then, as if they’d never been watching the movie at all, as if they were picking up where they’d left off with some other conversation that Liz couldn’t remember, a conversation that perhaps Simon had been having in his own mind, he said, “I’m thinking about going out West and getting a job next year.”
    This was such a startling revelation that Liz bolted upright. She hit the Pause button on the remote and slid to the edge of the couch. “You mean drop out?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Simon had always been atthe top of his class. He was brilliant with computers, with anything to do with technology. Everyone, including Liz, assumed next November he’d be applying for early acceptance to MIT or Carnegie Mellon.
    “Maybe.”
    “And what, go out West? You mean like wearing a Stetson and going on cattle drives?” It was a ludicrous picture and they both knew it.
    The old Simon would have laughed. The Simon who had been hers long before Kyle and his friends took over his life. But now he sat there staring at the frozen TV screen and never even cracked a smile, as if he hadn’t heard her, didn’t even know she was still in the room.
    Liz reached over and tapped him on the head. “Hello in there.” She leaned forward, tilting her head to get a better look at his eyes, eyes the color of the sea—a dark and stormy sea. And that startled her. She stared at him, as if trying to see right inside his head. Because sometimes that worked. Sometimes she could almost read Simon’s thoughts. They had known each other
that
long.
    Simon stood up so suddenly he had to grab the back of the couch for balance. “I’ve got to get home,” he said. He crossed the room to the French doors that led out to the patio.
    “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” Liz prodded. “I mean,
really
wrong.”
    Simon gripped the doorknob. “Nothing’s wrong.” His voice was flat.
    “The smartest kid in Bellehaven High wants to drop out of school and that’s not something wrong?”
    Simon stared across the room at her. For a few hopeful seconds she thought he was going to tell her what was really on his mind, when suddenly the movie roared into the awkward silence. Instead of hitting the Pause button again, Liz turned off the TV.
    “Maybe I don’t want to go to college. Maybe it’s that simple,” he said.
    Liz began nervously twisting a jagged strand of hair. It wasn’t “that simple” at all, and she knew it. But she wasn’t sure how to get Simon to talk about what was bothering him. And in the end, she said exactly the wrong thing. “There’s more to it than that,” she said. “I know you, Simon.”
    He yanked open the door and looked over at her. His eyes were hooded, unreadable. “You don’t know me at all. You just like to think you do.”
    Liz felt as if he’d given her a karate chop across her windpipe. For the first time in their friendship, she didn’t have a clue what was going on in Simon’s mind. And now it appeared as if she never had. So she let him go. Let him walk right out the door.
    Now he was in the hospital, in a coma, and might never come back to her.
    Someone had grabbed Liz by the elbow and was attempting to help her up. She stared up into the puffy red face of Mr. Prendergast. His tie flopped awkwardly against the top of her head as he struggled to get her to her feet. Liz was all too aware that she was a little