Rage: A Love Story

by Peters, Julie Anne

• ISBN13: 9780375844119
• ISBN10: 0375844112
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2010-12-28
• Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Summary

A National Book Award Finalist offers an intense portrait of an abusive relationship. Johanna is steadfast, patient, reliable; the go-to girl, the one everyone can count on. But always being there for others can't give Johanna everything she needsit can't give her Reeve Hartt. Reeve is fierce, beautiful, wounded, elusive; a flame that draws Johanna's fluttering moth. Johanna is determined to get her, against all advice, and to help her, against all reason. But love isn't always reasonable, right? In the precarious place where attraction and need collide, a teenager experiences the dark side of a first love, and struggles to find her way into a new light. From the Hardcover edition.

Author Biography

National Book Award finalist Julie Anne Peters offers an illuminating portrait of a relationship that’s sure to speak to anyone who’s experienced love’s thrill and thorns. She lives in Lakewood, Colorado. Visit her on the Web at www.julieannepeters.com.


From the Hardcover edition.

Excerpts

Chapter 1

I locate the room on the first floor where Mrs. Goins asked me to meet her. She was desperate, she said. So many seniors on the verge of not graduating, she said. Would I please tutor this one? A special one who needs special help with the senior project, she said.

I guess I'm meant to feel special, but I have my own stuff to finish--like that damn Film Studies class Novak talked me into.

I peek in. The classroom's empty. Did I get the room wrong? I've been losing whole blocks of time lately, spacing constantly. Where does life go when it's lost to you?
My backpack slips off my shoulder and a note falls out of the front pocket.
"I'm dropping Film Studies," Novak wrote.

An old note from the beginning of term. At the time I thought: Thanks. Abandon me, like everyone else has.

I hear Mrs. Goins coming before I see her. She's . . . rustling? Maybe her thighs are rubbing together or something. Since the first of the year, she's put on, like, twenty pounds. A lot of people call her Meaty Loins.

I would never do that.

The person behind Meaty Loins materializes.

"Johanna, this is Robbie Inouye. Robbie, Johanna Lynch."

Oh my God. Kill me now.

Robbie Inouye scares the hell out of me. He might be retarded, or challenged, or whatever terminology you use to dance around the truth. He's definitely messed. His eyes aren't symmetrical, or could it be his head's on crooked? The corners of his mouth are always caked with dried-up spittle and he lumbers, drags his feet like Frankenstein. He's not big. I'm five eight and he's shorter than me, but he seems huge.

Once upon a time, slow-moving Robbie would get jostled in the hall. I'd see people cut in front of him, making him stumble. Then came last November, right before Thanksgiving. I remember because Novak had been dumped by her boyfriend, Dante--again--and it was taking longer than usual to stanch the internal bleeding.

We were in the restroom by the cafeteria. I got her past the point of slitting her wrists by reassuring her that she was an idiot for staying with him. "If I wasn't so fucking irresistible," she hiccuped, swiping at her nose, "I wouldn't attract vermin." 

"Exactly," I replied. I was late; I couldn't stay to hold her hand. "I'm better off without the asshole." "Too true." I had a midterm in trig and I'd blown the last quiz.
"Thank you, sweetie." Novak hugged me. "What would I do without you?" She held me so hard I couldn't breathe.

So I'm charging out of the restroom, dodging bodies and wedging through the mob of people exiting the cafeteria. Late bell rings and my class is two flights up. Then I hear this cry, more of a keen or wail. I look over and see a blur of skin, bone, and loose spittle, bared teeth. It's Robbie.

Someone had taken the instrument case he carries around. A guy was swinging it over his head and Robbie was lying on the floor like he'd been jumped. His books and papers had spilled down the stairs and one of his shoes was off.

Without warning, he rose up like Atlantis emerging from the sea, like Goliath in a rage, fists flailing, screeching and bellowing so loud my ears squinched. The guy with the case passed it to another guy, then a girl, a guy, the girl again. Robbie went crazy. He started swinging in all directions, clawing to get that case. He let out this high-pitched hawk screech, along with foam and spit, then busted the girl right in the chops with his fist. I felt the impact as she screamed and dropped the case.

The first guy made the mistake of retaliating for his girlfriend, hooking Robbie's neck from behind. Robbie whirled and smacked the guy's head into a brick wall.

I heard--felt--the crunch of bone.

I don't know why I did it, but the case was only about two feet away and I bent to retrieve it. Robbie grabbed the case and swung it up. The corner smacked me in the chin and slammed me into the