Page 10 of Behind the Bars

“Elliott?”

“Yes?”

“You’re staring at me, and it’s a bit weird now,” she stated, combing her dark hair behind herear.

“Oh, sorry, but, well, thank you?” I shook my head a little and moved my stare to the floor. “I mean, thank you…for the compliment. Thankyou.”

“You’re welcome?” She winked before she turned away to talk to someone else, because other than being ridiculously pretty, smart, and kind, Jasmine was popular. I’d never seen someone become so popular as fast as shehad.

Jasmine Greene had walked into Canon High School as if she owned it. She’d started a few weeks into first semester, but that hadn’t stopped her from acting as if the whole student body deserved to bow down to her, and bow down they did. As a junior, she had the popularity of a senior. She excelled at everything she took part in, from arts and crafts toalgebra.

I hadn’t even known she knew I existed, even though I knew all about her. I was still wildly confused, though. Why was she being so nice tome?

The moment she started talking to someone else, I let out the heaviest sigh of mylife.

“Eli,” a familiar voice said, and the nickname indicated that it was a safe voice to hear. I turned around to see my older sister, Katie, standing behind me with a concerned look on her face. Her stare moved down the hallway to Jasmine. “Are youokay?”

“Yes,why?”

“You were talking to that new girl,Jasmine.”

“Yeah,so?”

Katie cleared her throat and stood up a bit taller with her books in her hands. “What were you talking about? I just don’t understand why she’d be talking toyou.”

“Wow, thanks,” I saidwryly.

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t mean it like that, Eli. You’re just better than thosepeople.”

“Thosepeople?”

“Ya know, the Chanel bag girls—the popularkids.”

“You wanted a bag like that lastyear.”

“I know, but that’s not that same, and I don’t care about things like that anymore. Plus, I saw her talking to Todd Clause, too, ya know, and if he’s hertype—”

“Maybe I’m her type too,” I joked, puffing out my chest. “I am pretty…” I blinked my eyes shut tight.Muscular—just say it. The word is muscular.My throat tightened, knowing the word I wanted to escape from my mouth and trying my hardest to say it. “I think I’m pretty…” Nothing. I choked on the air and my mind raced, trying to think of another word, a synonym that could work in place of muscular. Anything…anything would work, but once I started panicking, words were impossible to find. I took deep breaths and tried to push out the word. “I’m pretty…” But it didn’t work. It hardly ever did. “I think I’m pretty beefy,” I finally choked out, my ears burning from the struggle, my face brightred.

“Beefy?” Katie giggled. “Elliott, you’re as beefy as a chickenwing.”

I laughed as my face started to cool down from the pressure of trying to pronounce a simpleword.

My sister never mentioned my stuttering, never made me feel bad about it. Normally she just whistled or hummed to herself and patiently waited for me to finish. Sometimes she’d stop looking at me, because she knew having someone stare at me made it more difficult. She never tried to guess the word I was trying to say, either, because she could tell how much worse that made thesituation.

Katie grimaced and nudged me in the arm. “Look, I know with Jason off in Nebraska for the year, you’ve been a bitlonelier…”

“I’m not lonely,” I lied, and Katie knew it was a lie, too. My best friend Jason had moved to Nebraska for the year, and with him gone, I really had no one to talk to except for mysister.

I hatedthat.

I hated how hard it was to be alone all thetime.

“Just be careful,” Katie warned, like the overprotective sister she was. “I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all.” She gave me a smile before walking off. Katie might’ve been my sister, but she didn’t have the same social struggles as me. She was beautiful, like Mom, and well-spoken like her,too.

Her choice not to hang out with the popular kids was due to an incident that happened the previous year. Before that, she was one of them, the cool ones, but now she kept to herself. She didn’t care much. At least I didn’t think she did. She always said there were more important things than being popular in highschool.

She had better things to do, like focusing on where she’d be going to college nextyear.

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