Read Cooper for Free Online Page A

unlikely.
    Pointing to the camera he’d set up on the wooden framework overhead, he laughed triumphantly. "That's to prove I won the bet. They said I didn't have the guts to fuck the ugly idiot, but they're wrong. I can do anything !"
    And then he undid his belt, slowly, the threat in every gesture and look. She should have screamed. She should have tried to run. Instead, Amy had felt frozen to the spot.
    Her whole world had collapsed around her that day. Every girlish dream she ever held about finding her Prince Charming, who would see beneath her ugly exterior to the real her, died as she lay there waiting for that boy to rape her.
    As Paul dropped his pants, his expression shifted from triumph to surprise. Reaching for his neck, he looked around, as if trying to locate something neither of them could see. In the next moment, he fell to the ground, a small dart sticking out of his neck.
    Sobbing hysterically, Amy scrambled to her feet and ran. Not back to school. Not back to those jeering faces just waiting to see her violation. Not home either, where more punishment would surely come her way. She ran and hid in the grove of trees at the far end of the school grounds. And she stayed there, unable to make another decision, until the police found her the next morning. That very day she was shipped back to the mental institution.
    "Amy? Are you still there?" Cooper's anxious voice drew her away from those terrible memories.
    She couldn't risk her heart again. Not on this possible gold-digger. Although nothing screamed at her to stay away, she couldn't trust her own judgement. Even though everything inside her drew her to Cooper, she fought against it. She'd been wrong so often she didn't know what was right anymore.
    "Yes, I'm here. I…I don't think it’s a good idea. You and I, it wouldn't work."
    She heard the silence at the other end of the line. She could almost feel his pain at her rejection.
    "I… understand. Sorry to have bothered you," he said stiffly.
    He thought it was because he was in a wheelchair. He thought she was rejecting him because he was disabled. No, she couldn't let him think that. That was too cruel. Oh, God, more choices. More chances to make another mistake.
    "Cooper, I'm not in a good place. I…I've spent the last eight years in and out of mental institutions. Being with me wouldn't be good for you. I wouldn't be good for you." She shuddered and tried not to sniff, but the tears kept flowing.
    "Fuck that! I'm sick of people telling me you're not good for me. I want to see you. And I think you want to see me, too. Tell me I'm wrong!" He sounded so upset that her tears flowed harder in sympathy.
    "Amy!" he demanded furiously.
    Although his anger should have terrified her, it didn't. His fury wasn't directed at her but at the outside forces keeping them apart: her unstable mental condition, his friends who told him to stay away from her.
    Who had told him about her? Surely the grapevine wasn't that fast. Yet he'd said people had told him she was not good for him. So he knew.
    "Those people are right, Cooper. Listen to those people. Having anything to do with me will only end up hurting you. My father won't approve. You're… you're not one of us. He'd never let things between us develop. He might even make you disappear. It happens.
    “I know I'm not supposed to say things like that. I know they make me sound unhinged. But my father isn't…isn't a good man. He's ruthless. I wouldn't be surprised if my cell phone is bugged. He'll make me pay for what I've just told you. Please…Please, Cooper...just walk away. Sorry… I mean, not walk….You know what I mean." Finally she broke down completely, sobbing into the phone.
    The wisest thing to do was to hang up. She shouldn't be putting on such a hysterical display in front of someone she barely knew. But couldn't bring herself to pressed the red button.
    "Tell me I'm wrong," he said hoarsely.
    God, he was stubborn. What else could she throw at him to