Read The Book of Luke for Free Online

successfully unhooked my bra. Sean had ruined it for me. Right now, the only sparks I wanted were the ones that could set Sean and his L.L.Bean field coat on fire.
    “You remember Luke, don’t you?” Owen asked, gesturing to his left where Luke now stood watching us.
    Luke nodded at me. “Hey, Emily.”
    “Hi Luke,” I answered cheerily, and then before I could stop myself added, “How’re you doing?”
    Damn!
    If I could have smacked myself, I would have. This was the guy who’d dumped my best friend and here I was acting like I actually cared about how he was doing. Why should I care about Luke? It was Josie I cared about. What kind of friend was I, chatting up the guy who’d screwed over my best friend?
    Luke smiled at me and I fought the instinct to smile back, which wasn’t all that easy. After a lifetime of my mother ingraining pleasant and proper greetings in my brain, I wasn’t sure how to kick the habit.
    Even though I could hear my mom’s voice telling me to say hello, maybe even extend a firm handshake and say it was nice to see him again, I didn’t. If I was going to break the nice habit, now was a good time to start.
    “Forget it,” I quickly recovered, not bothering to hide my disgust as I looked Luke up and down. “I know how you’ve been. I already heard all about you, and it’s more than I care to know.”
    At first, Luke seemed surprised by my reaction. In fact, he seemed almost confused.
    I could guess what he was thinking—the Emily Abbott he knew would never be such a bitch. But then again, the Luke Preston I’d known wouldn’t cheat on my best friend. And he wouldn’t look like a model out of an Abercrombie catalog.
    All of a sudden Luke smirked at me, and I knew he understood the situation. He knew he was too late. Josie had already gotten to me, and I was a loyal friend. I wouldn’t just ignore what Luke did to her. I cared about Josie’s feelings—I wasn’t a guy .
    “I’m sure you do,” Luke muttered, and I shot him a look that said, in no uncertain terms, that he and I would not be friends.
    Before I could lose my courage and dissolve into apologies for being so rude, I turned the doorknob and walked into the classroom just as the bell started to ring.
     
    By lunchtime I almost felt like I was getting back into the swing of things. I had four classes under my belt and, thankfully, I wasn’t completely lost. Not that it mattered much at this point. After hearing from Brown the day before Christmas—a lovely little Christmas Eve gift from the admissions committee who, come to think of it, should have just written “bah, humbug” on the envelope and called it a day—I’d sent in my applications to a bunch of other colleges, so the rest of this year was more about making it through in one piece, rather than attempting to graduate first in my class. I already knew that wasn’t going to happen. Mr. Wesley, the headmaster, made it clear that no matter how well I did my last semester at Heywood, and no matter how well I’d done in Chicago before I left, I couldn’t be valedictorian after returning midyear. My mom had actually thanked Mr. Wesley before hanging up the phone and telling me this news, and I’d wanted to tell her to call him back and say that wasn’t fair. That I’d busted my ass for four years, and there was no way I was going to sit with the rest of the class at graduation and act like it was no big deal. It was a big deal. But ultimately, like everything else that had taken place in the last three weeks, I had no choice in the matter. Everyone else was making decisions for me and I was just being handed my life on a plate—and I was supposed to graciously accept it and say thank you. Even if it was a plate I didn’t order and wanted to send back.
    Besides, my mom told me, I should be thankful Heywood was willing to take me back at all, considering how late in the school year it was. But the only thing I was thankful for at that point was that I’d