When Reason Breaks Read Online Free PDF

what I did. They’ll find my notebooks in my locker and rip my life apart, page by page, to find answers to their questions. Even then, they might not understand. I wanted to tell you myself. It wasn’t an impulsive decision. People might think so because of what happened yesterday. That’s not the reason why, but it was the last straw. I’m not blaming anyone else, though
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    I’m the one who let it all get to me. Some people can shrug things off. Not me. I mulled things over and over until they were a part of me. I saw and felt things differently than they did. Kind of like Emily Dickinson. Turns out, we shared a lot more than our initials
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    You know, once, she said her father’s “heart was pure and terrible.” And she said, “I never had a mother. I suppose a mother is one to whom you hurry when you are troubled.” These lines could’ve been from my own journal, but they were written by someone born almost two hundred years ago. Weird, right? I mean, we felt exactly the same about certain things, like how we wanted to be remembered in the end
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    That same poem about her writing a letter and never getting a response? Well, she does get noticed. At the end of the poem. And after her death. The last line of that poem is a request. I ask the same of you, Ms. Diaz
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    Please, “Judge tenderly – of Me.”

Chapter 7

“Denial – is the only fact”
SEPTEMBER
    Emily walked alone to the bus stop at the corner of her street, her earbuds firmly in place. Others also blocked out the world as they waited, but a few huddled together and talked. Sue Huntington, a freshman, chatted with three boys. She caught Emily’s gaze and waved. Emily circled a piece of hair around her ear and spun her small pearl earring. She smiled politely and waved back but didn’t join the conversation. Instead, she turned her attention to her iPod and searched for a better song. While she waited, she kicked small loose stones or texted Sarah and Abby, who were already on the bus.
    She acted like she wasn’t concerned about anything, but she was. Emily had come close to telling her friends, but she didn’t. The last thing she wanted was to start the year withthe kind of drama that put her at center stage. Been there. Done that.
    After that June party, when she and Kevin had kissed in the corner in front of everybody, her phone blew up with texts, posts, and tweets. She had played it perfectly—not too modest, not too confident—and had basked in the warm glow of the spotlight.
    Kevin turned up the heat with some flirty posts. Emily’s body tingled with nervous excitement in response to each one. Things were different this time. She wouldn’t pull back like she did in middle school. She wanted things to move forward.
    But then her dad saw the picture. The giddiness inside her evaporated and was replaced by humiliation as her dad berated her about her lousy judgment and loose morals—
¡Qué vergüenza!
In normal families, the scolding would have been followed by a month-long grounding. Case closed. But Councilman Edwin Delgado, Esq. had crafted a lengthy letter to the editor that was published in the local newspaper. In it, Emily apologized and her dad promised to address this serious problem both in his home and the town he loves and serves. Emily’s public shaming at the health center had followed.
    When the bus rounded the corner, Emily pulled her shirt down and smoothed the front of it. She wanted to tell her friends, but she couldn’t. Not yet. The spotlight would find her again and she didn’t want to get scorched.
    The bus hissed to a stop. Emily hung back and let everyoneelse climb on ahead of her. Once she got to the top step, Abby and Sarah stood up and screamed her name. They waved her over and hugged her when she reached the seat, as if they hadn’t seen her in years. Emily laughed and shushed them at the same time. People