b l o o d o n t h e b e a c h
25
to speak in groups. “I play
Call of Duty
, I have a black belt in
karate, and I’m addicted to
CSI
.”
Caleb laughed. “Okay, well, that’s easy. You’re definitely
not the karate kid.”
There were murmurs of agreement. I turned to face
him. “Why would you assume that, Caleb? Because I’m a
girl?”
“Because you’re, like, tiny? I don’t know. You just don’t
look the type.” His eyes narrowed. “Are you? Seriously?
Because that would be pretty cool.”
“And I
hate
first-person shooters,” I said.
“You said something about your
tv
and your
PlayStation.” He sounded defensive. “So I figured…”
“
fps
games are for people who don’t have the brains for
strategy games or the skill for platformers.”
“Dude, I play
Call of Duty
,” Chad cut in. “And
Battlefield
.
And
Planetside 2
.”
“Right. Thanks for making my point for me,” I snapped.
Rahim cleared his throat. “Alice. It sounds like you are
upset. Hurt, perhaps, and angry. Do you want to talk about
that?”
I shook my head. “Yeah, no.” I didn’t want to talk about
anything at all. Not to Rahim. Not to anyone. A week of this
crap stretched out ahead—a whole goddamn week. It had
only been an hour, and I was already losing my mind.
