What Survives of Us (Colorado Chapters Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

who’s new to town, and he’s having a hard time with the adjustment.  Family moved here from Chicago, so he’s got that city edge on him and the kids really aren’t warming up.  Tenth grader, loves basketball, thinks we’re all a hopeless bunch of hicks.”  She smiled.  “Which we are.  Anyway, I wondered if you could ask one of your Friday night kids to reach out.  They’d have to be ready for the re-buff – he has his shields up but good.”
    It was things like this that made his head pound.  If she would just be shallow and selfish, he wouldn’t feel so conflicted about loathing her.  “I’ll ask Trevor.  And maybe Jason.  They’ve both lived in bigger cities – they may connect better.”
    “Thank you.  He’s been on my mind – wrote a pretty anguished paper about leaving his life behind that had nothing to do with the writing prompt.  I tried to talk to him – thought maybe he was reaching out, a lot of kids do through writing assignments – but he gave me the stiff arm.”  She sighed.  “The curse and privilege of teaching English, I guess.  We learn a lot about the kids through their writing, but they won’t always let us help them.”
    “That must be difficult,” Jack said stiffly.  Just a few more blocks.  He resisted the urge to fudge, even a little bit, on the speed limit.  In contrast to his jaw-clenching tension, she seemed completely relaxed, long-fingered hands lying gracefully in her lap.
    “It is, at times,” Layla agreed.  She turned to look at him just as he was home-free, pulling into her driveway.  “Jack, why do you dislike me so much?”
    Unbelievable.  Jack gazed straight ahead, feeling her eyes on him.  Penance, that’s what this was, for his unkind thoughts, as deserving as she was of them.  He turned his head to look at her, keeping his face still, neutral.  “What makes you think I dislike you?”
    Layla snorted and rolled her eyes.  “Please.  I teach teenagers.  So do you, so you know what I mean.  It rolls off you in waves.”
    “I’m a Christian pastor,” he answered stiffly.  “I should think the reason for my disapproval would be obvious.”  Lord, he sounded stuffy.  This was one of the things that ticked him off about her the most – the way she made him feel square and unnatural, like a stick-in-the-mud fuddy duddy.
    “No,” she said thoughtfully, after a moment.  “That’s the thing.  It’s not obvious.”  She shifted onto her hip, twisting her body to face him more fully, her face open and earnest.  “The kids talk about you, you know.  They talk about how accepting you are, how you teach tolerance and compassion.  Frankly, I liked you for a year before I even met you.  I think what you’re doing, what you teach the kids, is a good thing.”  Another pause.  “Did I offend you in some way?”
    “Of course you did!  Everything about you offends me!”
    His voice was loud, abrasive, edgy, even to his own ears.  He shut his eyes for a moment, struggling to moderate his response to her.  He wasn’t used to losing control of an interaction like this; normally, he could sense just how to talk to someone, just when to pause, when to sit back, when to touch someone’s forearm.  But with Layla, there was no rhythm to the interaction – just a lot of disconnected near-misses and frustration.
    He opened his eyes and found her watching him patiently, a frown drawing a vertical line between her eyebrows.  He took a deep breath, reached for calm reason, and hit her with both barrels.  “Exodus 22:18.  “Thou shall not suffer a witch to live.”
    It was satisfying, so very satisfying, to see her mouth drop open.  She goggled at him for a moment, then her spine snapped ram-rod straight, and battle lit her eyes.
    “I am so disappointed, hearing that from you.  I thought you were broader-minded than that.”
    Whatever satisfaction he had briefly enjoyed sizzled away under the stinging heat of her words.