Read Between the Sheets for Free Online

of heat up from his feet. It made his skin tight and his head hurt. Because leaving was something he was real good at. And he needed to figure out how to stay, for Casey’s sake.
    “Let’s go, then,” he said, and Colleen opened the door.
    Inside there was a thin man behind a desk wearing glasses and a red polo shirt, and when Ty walked in he stood up. “Mr. Svenson,” he said, but there was no smile, no good to see you again.
    Oh, man. Casey must have really screwed up .
    “Principal Root, good to see you.” He shook the guy’s hand.
    “This is our art teacher, Shelby Monroe.”
    It was like getting hit in the stomach. Not enough to put you down, but still a good, hard shock to the system that took a few seconds to recover from.
    Of course. Of course it’s her. Because God hates me, he really does .
    He turned to see the tall blonde staring, open-mouthed, at him.
    “You,” she said. It was a relief to know that she was shocked, too.
    “Yeah. Me. Someone want to tell me what’s happened?”
    “Have a seat.” Mr. Root pointed to the other chair across from his desk, and Ty sat down, burningly aware of Shelby watching him.
    She looked almost exactly the same as she had last night, as though even in the middle of the night, pulled from her bed, she didn’t dare go out in the world looking messy. Her blond hair was pulled back in a sleek, tight ponytail and she didn’t seem to wear a whole lot of makeup. Not that she needed it. Her skin was all pink and white.
    For a second last night, before he realized she wasthere to give him hell, before he realized what time it was and that she was in her robe, he’d been happy to see her. Happy for company.
    Ty wasn’t used to being lonely and last night his loneliness had come up out of nowhere, and she’d been, for one second, a welcome surprise.
    And then the whole thing went really wrong.
    “Ms. Monroe teaches art in your son’s class, and Casey drew something that we thought was worth discussing with you.”
    “Where’s the picture?” He glanced over at Shelby.
    “It was an identity project.” She had a piece of white paper flipped over on her lap. “They had to draw three images that would tell me about them without words.”
    “Is that the picture?” He pointed to her lap.
    “Yes.” She put her hands over the paper like she wasn’t going to give it to him yet.
    “You calling in all the parents?” he asked. “Or just the new kid’s?”
    “Normally, we wouldn’t have a meeting over one drawing, but it’s graphic and, frankly, disturbing,” Mr. Root said.
    “He’s a fifth-grade boy. They’re kind of graphic and disturbing by nature, aren’t they?”
    Shelby blinked her big brown eyes at him. Brown eyes and blond hair—you didn’t see that very much. And her eyebrows were dark. Stern. It seemed impossible, but there it was: she had stern eyebrows.
    He held out his hand, and after a moment she put the picture in it. Even before he flipped it, he had a pretty good idea that it was going to be one of three drawings.
    He glanced down. Right . Casey had gone with the cage again.
    “You think Casey’s drawing you a picture of what his life is like?” He focused on Shelby as if Mr. Root weren’t even in the room.
    His grandmother had this cat, a huge, fat black and white cat, who hated everything on the planet but Nana. In fact, Sweetie (a ridiculous joke of a name) sat on top of Nana’s chair and judged everyone as a subspecies.
    Shelby was exactly like Sweetie. He couldn’t tell exactly what she thought when she looked at him, but it wasn’t good.
    “It was an identity exercise.”
    “And you think this is me.” He pointed to the snarling man in the picture. Actually, this one looked more like him than it ever had. Casey had finally got the nose and hair right, which only made this little stunt worse. Because he’d been practicing it. The woman in the picture was Vanessa. Right down to the avarice in her eyes. “And this is his mom,