Tweaked Read Online Free PDF

threats and the thugs jumping me in the street, my family used to do normal things. They were interested in normal things. Things like hobbies and music lessons, not how they were going to come up with fifty thousand dollars to get one of us out of jail.
    The following day, my first class isn’t until ten thirty, so I drop by the hospital first thing in the morning. The redhead, Lisa, recognizes me. “Hi, Richard Cross’s nephew,” she says.
    â€œGordie,” I remind her before I ask if there has been any change in Richard’s condition.
    She solemnly shakes her head. “He’s still comatose. There’s fluid on the brain that the doctors are trying to control. That’s the biggest challenge right now.”
    Again I make sure he has no other visitors before I continue down the hall and enter his room. I pull the unicorn from my backpack and place it on the bedside table beneath the drawings. Three more have been added. They are not quite as colorful as the previous two. Nothing else seems to have changed since I’dfirst visited Richard Cross. He is still hooked to the machines and he does not appear to have even moved. I think of the cnn news commercial about how “nothing stays the same for a week, a day or an hour.” It doesn’t appear true in Richard Cross’s case. His life was put on hold the moment Chase cracked him over the head. I feel like such a freak knowing what really connects me to him.
    I think of Chase going through detox, sweating and puking, and I feel no sympathy for how he must feel. If anything, his misery leaves me numb. So, he’ll live through it and he’ll move forward; he’ll recover. Richard Cross has shown no indication which way he’ll go.
    There is really nothing else for me to do, so I stay only a moment before going to school.
    I have just collected my books for physics when Ms. Larson, the school counselor, stops me in the hall. “Gordie, do you have a minute after school?”
    â€œWhat do you want to see me about?”
    I realize that I am being watched by the two biggest tools in the school: Jason Dodds who is about five foot four with a mind and body about as agile as a barbecue, and Brian Zimmerman who is never without a two-liter bottle of Coke. When he grins, his teeth are all pitted and the color of a pumpkin.
    Following my glance, Ms. Larson leans a little forward and lowers her voice. “I hear your brother’s got himself into trouble. I just want to talk.” Ms. Larson is young, enthusiastic and very professional. She is always dressed in suits with coordinating shoes. I try to imagine sitting across from her, telling her what it’s been like living with Chase, the things he’s done. I decide it wouldn’t be much different than sitting down and spewing a string of obscenities in her face. “I’m sorry, I have to work,” I lie.
    Ms. Larson smiles before laying a hand on my shoulder. “Okay, well, anytime you want to talk, I’m always here.”
    I nod and continue down the hall. As I pass Jason Dodds, he flings open his locker and pulls out a lacrosse stick, nailing me in the gut.
    â€œGeez, I’m sorry, Jessup,” he sneers.
    I grab the end of the stick and push it toward him.
    â€œYou’d better watch it,” says Zimmerman. He’s leaning against the locker next to Jason Dodds, swinging the bottle of Coke between two fingers. “I wouldn’t turn my back on Jessup. He might smash you over the head.”
    Jason grins. I still hold one end of the stick. I want so badly to wrench it from his hands and take out a few of his teeth. But somewhere in the back of my head I know this would be stooping to his level, exactly what he wants. I relax my grip.
    At the same moment Mr. Dublenko, my physics teacher, steps out of his classroom into the hallway. “Come on, fellas, get moving. The bell for the next class has already