Read Beautiful for Free Online Page B

to do great things and still be boring. And I am sitting here, expelled from the world that welcomed me for just a few days. I can hear the gangsters talking about somerival who wronged them. I can hear James the asshole bragging about how high he got last night. I can hear the beautiful new guy talking about climbing on a freeway overpass and tagging the sign for Mercer Island.
    â€œYo, what’s your tag?” asks Anthony, and Ethan takes a giant marker out of his pocket and writes it on the table:
Aleph.
    â€œWhat’s that mean?” the guy says.
    â€œ
A
. It’s Hebrew for
A
.”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œ
A
, the letter
A.
Like the first letter of the alphabet.”
    â€œThat’s cool.”
    â€œâ€™Cause I’m the first, man. The best.”
    â€œTight,” says Wes, and they high-five. Everyone keeps talking and I keep drinking my Diet Coke and watching the clock and the wolf that doesn’t look tough at all. Ethan keeps looking at me and smiling and I keep looking away because I can’t tell if it’s a nice smile or a laughing smile so it’s best to pretend that I don’t see it. He’s writing something on a piece of paper and the bell rings and I stand up and he stands up and gives me the piece of paper. I put it in my pocket and say “Thanks” without looking at him and he says, “See ya,” and walks away. I want to hit myself.
Thanks?
Are you supposed to say thanks when someone gives you a piece of fucking paper?
    Alex says, “Bye,” and she smiles at me like she knows something I don’t. Everyone’s gone except James the asshole and the slutty girl still making out on the bench, and I’m just standing here like an idiot with no friends. I start walking toward my classroom and I’m the only person in the whole school walking alone. I get to the door that says E&A, EXPANDED AND ADVANCED, the only class I have all day. While everyone else gets a new room and new teacher and new classmates every fifty minutes, I am stuck in here with the same losers and a teacher who hates me. I can see through the window everyone already sitting down and waiting attentively, and I consider for a moment making a run for it. But there is nowhere else to go.
    Normal classes sit in rows. Gifted classes sit in circles. Gifted students are plain and dull and they used to think I was one of them. Now they don’t talk to me and I don’t talk to them. I keep quiet and do my work. I can see them all wondering what I’m doing here. They try to be sneaky when our papers come back, like they’re not leaning over to look at my grades, like they’re not pissed that I always get A’s.
    I sit in my seat next to Justin, the boy with the glasses and mildew-smelling coat. He’s the only one who talks to me. Everyone hates him, too.
    â€œHi, Cassie,” he says.
    â€œHi.”
    â€œDid you have a good weekend?”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œMy mom put me on Ritalin.” He’s scratching something on his face.
    â€œWhy are you telling me that?”
    â€œI don’t know.” He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “What’d you do this weekend?”
    â€œHung out with some friends.”
    â€œThose ninth graders you’re always talking to at lunch?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œThey’re not very nice.”
    â€œThey’re nice to me.”
    â€œNo they’re not.”
    â€œDon’t talk to me,” I tell him, and he obeys. He’s the only person I talk to like this. I can’t help myself. He just takes it, like it doesn’t even hurt his feelings.
    Mr. Cobb walks through the door and everyone turns even more attentive. They pick up their pens and open the notebooks that are already waiting anxiously at their desks. I take the piece of paper out of my pocket, breathe, and unfold it.
    Yo Casy
.
    Why R U so shy?
    Peace
,
    Ethan
    p.s. I think your hot
.
    I