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Back The Lucky Ones Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-one
  25. Chapter Twenty-two
  26. Chapter Twenty-three
  27. Chapter Twenty-four
  28. Chapter Twenty-five
  29. Chapter Twenty-six
  30. Chapter Twenty-seven
  31. Chapter Twenty-eight
  32. Chapter Twenty-nine
  33. Chapter Thirty
  34. Chapter Thirty-one
  35. Chapter Thirty-two
  36. Chapter Thirty-three
  37. Chapter Thirty-four
  38. Chapter Thirty-five
  39. Chapter Thirty-six
  40. Chapter Thirty-seven
  41. Chapter Thirty-eight
  42. Chapter Thirty-nine
  43. Chapter Forty
  44. Chapter Forty-one
  45. Chapter Forty-two
  46. The Letter
  47. Chapter Forty-three
  48. Chapter Forty-four
  49. Chapter Forty-five
  50. Chapter Forty-six
  51. Chapter Forty-seven
  52. Chapter Forty-eight
  53. Chapter Forty-nine
  54. Chapter Fifty
  55. Chapter Fifty-one
  56. Chapter Fifty-two
  57. Chapter Fifty-three
  58. Author’s Note
  59. Resources
  60. Acknowledgments
  61. About the Author
  62. What’s next onyour reading list?

The teacher is already at the front of the room, manically waving her arms as she speaks, her crazy-curly brown hair loose and flying around her head. She’s a total cliché of a drama teacher, and I can’t help but snicker to myself as I watch her. A girl sitting a couple seats over must hear my dorky laugh, because she glances at me with a crooked little smile.

I’ve never seen her before in my life, but that smile…it melts my heart. Not only because no one ever smiles at me anymore, but also because I recognize something in it that’s super smart and knowing—something that makes me think, Wow, someone gets me.

Something I rarely feel these days.

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

I’m in the middle of my fourth class of the day and I could not give less of a shit. The teacher is a total wack job. She’s up in the front of the room, flinging her arms around, and it’s like, Honey, could you please go run a brush through your hair? She’s riding a fine line between I-haven’t-washed-my-hair-in-five-days hipster and, like, straight-up homeless. I reach for my phone to text Jordan about it before I realize what I’m doing.

The chairs in here are super uncomfortable and really close together, even though we’re in a theater. You’d think that someone out there would’ve considered that it might be an issue. How the fuck are you supposed to get out of here if something goes wrong? There’s no way to escape.

My hands are trembling in my lap. A big part of me is thinking, Can I just get up and go home now, please? The day is going by so slow and feels so pointless. There’s something about the shrill ring of the bell; the classrooms with these tight rows of seats; the piercing, rabid laughs of the kids in the hallways that’s just too much. I have a headache.

I’m considering leaving—class, school, everything—when this tall, gangly kid flies in late and slams his body down into a nearby seat. I glance over, and even though he just got here, he appears properly awed by our teacher, like Jordan would have been. He laughs to himself and then glances at me for some reason, and I can’t help but smile in response. Everyone else in the room is so serious, and fuck if I wasn’t afraid I’d be the only person in this room who isn’t all Rah rah theater blah blah blah.