The View from the Top by Hillary Frank

that he’s been hitting you and the boy is so dead.
    She wrapped one of the reins tightly around her hand. “He’s been saying he thinks there’s something going on between us.”
    Hold on, this was about him? Jonah leaned his head against the brass pole. It was cold. So cold. But he stayed there anyway, the metal freezing his brain.
    What do you say, what do you say? he thought. He could admit that he was attracted to her, that he found her cute and sweet. But then what? He had this feeling that if he actually got the chance to kiss her, he’d find her too cute and too sweet. Or was that just what he was telling himself because he felt wrong about kissing Matt’s girlfriend? Well, he’d almost just done that with Matt’s mom and he didn’t seem to have a problem with it. No, that wasn’t true. He had a big problem with it. God, what was happening to him? Didn’t he have any morals?
    Maybe that was the biggest thing holding him back here. That Anabelle, more than anyone he knew, had high morals. She was all about morals. And he couldn’t stand the idea of being the one who made her question that about herself. Besides, if he made a move on her, she’d probably reject him anyway. Because she was so good. So very, very good.
    Then again, she might go along with it. And if she did, it would be proof that even the most well-intentioned people have weaknesses. That she wasn’t so different from him after all.
    â€œDid you hear what I said?” she asked.
    â€œI heard,” he said, sitting back up. The cold spot on his forehead suddenly swelled with warmth. “It’s just, it’s so ridiculous that he’d think that.”
    â€œThat’s what I told him.” Was he just hearing things or did she sound disappointed?
    â€œRight, because there’s not,” he said. “Anything going on, I mean.”
    â€œI know.” She took a quick breath, tugged on the strings of her hood. “Hey,” she said, “you’re gonna see him more than I will next year. Can you, like, make sure he doesn’t go crazy? Remind him that I care about him?”
    â€œYeah,” he lied, knowing Matt would drive himself as crazy as he wanted and nobody could stop him. “I can do that.”
    A foghorn groaned out on the water and it reminded him of the sounds of agony he’d woken up to this morning, coming from his mother’s room. He wondered what she was doing right now, if she’d really gone to the hospital. Probably. He should’ve been home all this time, keeping her from spending money they didn’t have on treatments she didn’t need.
    â€œJonah?” Anabelle said.
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œWhy’re you sticking around next year?”
    It was a question he asked himself every day. “I don’t know,” he told her. “I guess school’s never been my thing. But I wonder sometimes if that was a mistake. If I should’ve tried harder. Maybe gone somewhere other than Normal Community.”
    â€œYou still could.”
    â€œNo, Anabelle, I couldn’t. I’m not like you. My grades suck. And there’s nothing interesting about me either. I never did an extracurricular in my life. Unless you count pot. And last time I checked with admissions people, they don’t.”
    â€œSorry, I didn’t mean to push you,” she said, stretching her legs out in her stirrups. “It just feels weird sometimes. Being the only one of our friends going so far from home.”
    â€œIf they make you feel bad, it’s ’cause they’re jealous,” he said. “I know I am. I like to imagine myself walking around a pretty campus, living in a dorm.”
    â€œWhat would you study if you went?” Her eyes were all round. Full of genuine concern, interest. She was the only person he knew who really wanted to know the answers to questions she asked.
    â€œYou’ll