BooksBarbecue
Back The Insiders Save as PDF
Chapters (52)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Chapter One
  4. Chapter Two
  5. Chapter Three
  6. Chapter Four
  7. Chapter Five
  8. Chapter Six
  9. Chapter Seven
  10. Chapter Eight
  11. Chapter Nine
  12. Chapter Ten
  13. Chapter Eleven
  14. Chapter Twelve
  15. Chapter Thirteen
  16. Chapter Fourteen
  17. Chapter Fifteen
  18. Chapter Sixteen
  19. Chapter Seventeen
  20. Chapter Eighteen
  21. Chapter Nineteen
  22. Chapter Twenty
  23. Chapter Twenty-One
  24. Chapter Twenty-Two
  25. Chapter Twenty-Three
  26. Chapter Twenty-Four
  27. Chapter Twenty-Five
  28. Chapter Twenty-Six
  29. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  30. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  31. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  32. Chapter Thirty
  33. Chapter Thirty-One
  34. Chapter Thirty-Two
  35. Chapter Thirty-Three
  36. Chapter Thirty-Four
  37. Chapter Thirty-Five
  38. Chapter Thirty-Six
  39. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  40. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  41. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  42. Chapter Forty
  43. Chapter Forty-One
  44. Chapter Forty-Two
  45. Chapter Forty-Three
  46. Chapter Forty-Four
  47. Chapter Forty-Five
  48. Chapter Forty-Six
  49. Epilogue
  50. Acknowledgments
  51. About the Author
  52. About the Publisher

There were people there. Sitting on his couch. Playing his games. Drinking his horchata.

No!

Mike.

Frank.

Carlos.

They laughed. They roughhoused with one another while playing Smash Bros. Héctor screamed at them, but they didn’t react, didn’t look back at him.

They couldn’t hear him at all.

He rushed forward, stood right in front of the television, waved his arms back and forth.

They kept playing. Kept laughing. Kept ignoring him.

Héctor held his hand up in front of his face, or at least what he thought was his hand.

There was nothing there.

Because Héctor was invisible.

Until Mike looked at him. Directly at him. Smiled.

“This isn’t yours,” he said, his grin spreading. “It never has been.”

Héctor woke up then, covered in sweat, his heart racing. He flipped over and screamed into his pillow, long and fierce. When he couldn’t scream anymore, he lay there, his breath heaving his chest up and down. He wished this all wasn’t so hard. No one ever told you how tiring it was not to fit in.

He passed out again, and this time, he slept without dreaming.

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Chapter Twenty-Nine

Héctor hesitantly stepped through the double doors at school the next morning. The images from his dream flashed in his mind, and he gulped down his anxiety. That didn’t actually happen, he told himself. Mike isn’t going to be in the Room. EVER.

But he needed to duck inside and see his friends, to make sure that the place was still theirs.

Apparently, Héctor didn’t actually need the Room, because he never found it. Who judged that? Who decided that what he was feeling that morning wasn’t strong enough?

He went to class full of a quiet bitterness. He moved from one class to another, and he took notes, and he listened, but was any of it sticking? Was any of it important?

His foul mood carried over to lunch. He tried to participate in the Misfits’ conversation, but they were arguing over which video game console was best, and Héctor owned none of them. He mostly stayed quiet, at least until just before lunch ended. Jackson put his hand on top of Héctor’s. “Hey, man,” Jackson said, loud enough so only Héctor could hear. “You okay?”

Héctor shook his head, comfortable enough telling Jackson that much of the truth.

“I’m sorry,” said Jackson, squeezing Héctor’s hand.

The moment passed, but Héctor still felt like a robot, like someone else had programmed him and he was running on auto. Without a word, he stood up and left Aishah behind. He needed time to think.

Alone.