Cruel Summer
Fast Girls, Hot Boys Series
prologue
graduation day
The seat was empty.
Unbelievably empty. Heartbreakingly empty. Shockingly empty.
Just one more example of cold, hard proof. Beyond the media coverage, the tears, and the funeral. Proof that a young life had been violently snuffed out before its time.
Bijou Ross approached the podium. She looked out at the audience assembled in the auditorium of the Miami Academy for Creative and Performing Arts.
The audience gazed back at her.
Bijou could feel their anticipation rising, and as the expectant silence boomed, her heartbeat accelerated, pumping hard, leaping around in her chest. The look on her face said she was worried about what words to use.
Here she was -- valedictorian, class of 2006. They were waiting for her to communicate. They wanted a speech. They needed some insight. From the girl who'd gotten a literary agent and a book deal months before her cap and gown. Hopes were pinned on her to provide some verbal balm for their souls, to make sense of the insensible. Yet Bijou, the one bi ... read full excerpt from Cruel Summer ebook
