The Perfect Family Read Online Free PDF Page A

be soon.
    It will be soon.
     
    But an inner voice recants,
    I hope it will be soon.
     
    Swallowing hard, Jamie read the last two poems, which went even further, which revealed more things he’d never told anybody, not even his mother. But down deep, Jamie knew when he’d written the entries, he’d wanted Ms. Carson to read them. Telling her could be like a dress rehearsal.
    She returned in five minutes. “All done?”
    “Yeah.”
    Crossing to her desk, she leaned against it and sipped her drink. “You don’t seem like you really want to let me read the entries, Jame.”
    “No, I do. Honest. Besides, you said during the war unit that the best time to do something is when it’s hard for you.”
    “How smart I am.” Smiling, she held out her hand, and it took more courage than David facing Goliath to give his journal to her.
    “I’ll read what you wrote now. Want to come back after practice?”
    “It’ll be about five.”
    “This is important, so I can hang around. Besides, I have papers to grade.”
    “Five it is.” He stood. “I gotta go.”
    “Jamie, don’t worry. I care about you.” She did, he knew that. “And I don’t judge.”
    “Gotcha. See you later.”
    Jamie stepped out of the classroom, and amidst the crowds of kids jostling each other and talking loud, he tried to be cool. But heading down the hall, the fear he was talking to Julianne about caught up with him and he hoped like hell he hadn’t just made a big mistake.
     
    *
     
    Sweat poured off Brian’s face as he lay on the bench and hefted the barbell above his head. A fifty-pound weight loaded down each end. Even his hands were slippery beneath his workout gloves.
    “Come on, Davidson, go for the burn. One more.” His friend Tony Simonetti spotted from the side.
    Grunting, Brian did one last rep. The weights clanged as Tony helped hook the bar into its holder. Brian collapsed into the bench, breathing hard.
    His buddy glanced from side to side, then bent over low. “If you’d take some of that juice Cummings got for us, this wouldn’t be so brutal.”
    “Eric Cummings is an asshole.” The guy did have muscles, but not from hard work. “And you’re a fool if you take that stuff.”
    “Maybe. I’m not sure yet.”
    Once in a while, Brian thought about using steroids. A lot of athletes were into them. When he told his brother what he was considering, Jamie dug up some research that scared the shit out of Brian. Heart trouble. Liver damage. But shrunken testicles sealed the deal. He wasn’t messing around with his balls.
    A whistle sounded from Coach Perkins. Coach was so cool. He shaved his head and wore sweats all day. Brian thought he might want to be a PE teacher, too.
    At the signal, Brian headed to the next station. This time he was paired up with Luke Crane. “How’s the shoulder?” Brian asked.
    “Better. I’m gonna be able to start on opening day.”
    Luke was a nice guy, the pitcher on their baseball team and valedictorian of the class. The girls hung around him all the time because of his dark blond hair and delicate features, though his body was way more pumped than anyone else’s. When Brian joked once to Jamie that Luke was almost pretty, Jamie had told him not to be such a tool.
    Brian pointed to the weights. “You wanna go first?”
    “Yeah.” Spreading his legs, Luke positioned his arms and Brian loaded a barbell with more pounds than he himself could handle. Luke grunted through four squats.
    “That’s enough, Luke, don’t kill yourself.”
    “Gotta get to five.” His face was red and his mouth pinched tight but he didn’t stop. Man, the guy was driven.
    After they finished and showered, Brian put on jeans and his Sherwood High sweatshirt, hurried out of the gym area and headed down to the locker he shared with Heather. She had cheerleading practice and finished about the same time as him. He found her bending over with her cute fleece-covered butt stuck in the air. Seeing nobody was around, he