Read Spiritdell Book 1 for Free Online Page B

safe,” I say to Julie. “Like how girls love ponies and baby-faced boy singers. I'm just a baby-faced singing boy pony to you.”
    James squeals, “Ooh, I love that pony! I don't want him to grow up, ever.”
    “Are you crying?” I ask Julie.
    “Screw you.” She pulls the hoodie from her jacket over her face.
    I thought I might feel better after breaking the news to Julie, but I don't. Isn't the truth supposed to set you free? My blabbing just created a whole new set of problems.
    “Nice one, bro,” James says. A few minutes later, he reaches his hand back and whispers, “High five for two whole video games.”
    I slap his hand, but there's no joy.
    * * *
    An hour of excruciating silence later, we pull onto the off-ramp for the lake. Julie's angry with me for being with another girl and probably humiliated by my openly acknowledging her crush on me. If I put myself in her little sporty sandals for a moment, I can understand her being upset. I don't know how I can fix that. Maybe by showing her we're still friends?
    I punch her on the shoulder. “Hey, Julie, we're still cool, right?”
    She clears her throat and continues to ignore me.
    “You know you and James are still my buds though, right? Best bros? I mean buds. Best buds.”
    James takes his gaze off the gravel road just long enough to give me a withering look. “Easy, soldier. Give the new paradigm some time,” he says.
    Time. I pull out my phone to check the time. I click the button for missed calls, hoping to find Austin's name there, even though we didn't exchange numbers. My hopeful heart still believes she may have called, despite not having my number, and despite my being deep in the woods with no cell phone reception.
    From what she said this morning, I guess Austin's at her job now, at The Bean. I know where the coffee shop is. In my head, I imagine her there, at the counter, grinding espresso. The floor is grey and white checkers, and the counter is orange. Everything's orange, and she's wearing the same dress she wore when I met her—navy blue with stars. She tips her head to the left and looks up at the ceiling. Her long, pale hair pools on the counter as she remembers the great time she had last night. Her eyebrows knit together as she wonders why the guy she met isn't coming to bring her flowers today. Or at least calling. She doesn't know he's at the lake, out in the middle of nowhere, with his best buds, one of whom hates him.
    Julie starts yelling, jarring me out of my daydream. “You little prick, you prick!” she says.
    “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” I yell back.
    “Don't make me pull over and discipline you two,” James says. Bits of gravel from the road are flying up into the bottom of the Jeep, banging away aggressively. A vehicle coming from the other direction sprays us with more gravel. “Jerk,” James says of the other driver.
    “Prick!” Julie yells.
    “She was really hot, okay?” I yell at Julie. “I'm sure you'd meet someone too if you got your face out of your books! No need to call me a prick.”
    “Not you,” Julie says, waving her arms and pulling off her hoodie. “In my sweatshirt, he stung me. A bee, or a hornet, or whatever, flew in the window and stung me!”
    “So I'm not a prick?” I ask. “The bee is the prick here?”
    “Oh, that's good luck,” James says.
    Breathing heavily, Julie glares at her brother as though he raised the bee from a tiny grub and trained it to sting her on just this occasion. “Good luck?” she spits out. “In what culture?”
    “Some culture, probably,” he says. “Lots of things are good luck. Depends how you look at it. You can't make something up and not have it be true somewhere in the world.”
    “Getting pooped on by a bird is good luck,” I say.
    “Lucky you,” James says.
    She rubs the red welt on her arm. “This is not good, whatsoever. I hope you get stung by a bee,” she says to her brother. “And break a leg. You too, Zan, stop laughing.”
    “Hey, you