Read She's So Dead to Us for Free Online

girl in North America and every guy at OHH was grateful.
    “Girls,” I said, rolling my eyes. I looked back at Ally and her mom again. They were heading toward the faculty entrance around the corner. Shannen and Faith hadn’t seen them yet.
    “You coming?” Shannen asked.
    “I’ll catch up.”
    They exchanged another look—always needing to check the other’s reaction to everything—and then kept walking. I jogged around the corner to the front of the school, sticking close to the building, and was waiting against the outer wall when Ally and her mom got to the stairs. I clutched the strap on my backpack and waited for Ally to see me. When she did she almost tripped, then looked away. I knew it. She hated me now. The girl I couldn’t stop thinking about hated my guts. I took a few steps toward her so she couldn’t ignore me.
    “Hey,” I said.
    Both she and her mom paused. “Hello,” her mother said.
    “Hi, Mrs. Ryan. I’m Jake Graydon,” I said. Whenever I was around parents, my manners kicked right in. “Ally and I met the other day at—”
    “A party,” Ally interrupted.
    I looked at her, confused.
    “You went to a party?” Ally’s mother said. “When?”
    “Last night. Just for a little while. It’s a long story,” Ally said.
    “You went out to a party and didn’t tell me?” her mother asked.
    Great. Now I’d gotten her in trouble. This was not going well.
    “Mom!” Ally said through her teeth.
    “Where was this party?” her mother asked, hand on hip.
    “At Connor Shale’s,” I said, trying to help.
    Ally’s mother’s face lit up, and I felt momentarily satisfied. Until I saw the look of death Ally shot me. What? What had I done now?
    “You went to Connor’s house? How is he? How’s his mom?” Mrs. Ryan asked.
    “Mom, aren’t we going to be late?” Ally said pointedly.
    Ally’s mother sighed, but she seemed happy, still. “Yes, I suppose we are. Nice meeting you, Jake.”
    They started to walk inside through the faculty doors. Which, I guess, meant Ally’s mom was faculty. That would explain the spiral-bound teacher’s ledger thing she had under her arm. That must suck. Having your mom work at your school.
    “Actually, could I just speak to Ally for a sec?” I asked. Her mom seemed both surprised and somehow impressed that I wasn’t giving up. “It’ll only be a second, I swear.”
    Ally heaved a sigh. “I’ll be right in, Mom.”
    “Okay,” her mother said. Then she shot me a suspicious look. “But if I don’t see you in the office in five minutes I’m sending out a search party.”
    Funny. I kind of liked her mom.
    “So, Jake Graydon, huh?” Ally said. “Nice to meet you, I guess.”
    Suddenly I felt nervous. I never felt nervous around girls. Except Shannen sometimes. And that was for an entirely different reason—because half the time I was with her we were doing stuff that could get us in trouble. “Yeah, so last night kind of sucked,” I said with a smile.
    “You were there? Could have fooled me.”
    She reached around me for the door, and I had to sort of sidestep to block her way. I hesitated for a second. Where had that move come from? I didn’t think I’d ever tried to block a girl from walking away in my life. But, then, she’d caught me off guard. I’d been expecting her to laugh and blush and say, “Don’t worry about it.” That was what most girls would have done.
    “Look, I wanted to say something, but what could I say? I don’t know what happened between you guys before I moved here.”
    She looked me dead in the eye. Another thing most girls didn’t do. We both knew it was a cop-out. I’d been up all night thinking about all the things I could have said or done. Told Faith to back off. Cracked a joke. Just gotten Ally out of there. All night I’d been pissed that I hadn’t done those things. And now I felt a surge of anger over being called on it. It was bad enough that I was pissed at myself, but who was she to be mad at