“Sure,” I said, feign­ing non­cha­lance. Some­thing told me Ar­iana would ap­pre­ci­ate the show of strength. “What's with Tay­lor?”

“Oh, she's still not feel­ing well,” Ar­iana replied.

“Hang­over?” I whis­pered.

“Among oth­er things.” Ar­iana sighed. “Tay­lor gets strep ev­ery fall and then is sick on and off all the way through the win­ter un­til spring fi­nal­ly springs again. She spends half her time study­ing in the in­fir­mary. Bet­ter get used to it.” She stared off af­ter Tay­lor's re­treat­ing form. “Weak con­sti­tu­tion on that girl,” she said al­most wist­ful­ly. “It's a shame.”

“Oh.” I stared at the ground. Be­ing sick and in­fir­mary-?bound seemed like a fine op­tion to me just then. Maybe I should get Tay­lor to breathe on me, I thought.

42

'You okay?" Ar­iana asked me.

“I guess,” I replied.

Even though I wasn't. Even though my body, heart, and soul all ached with a vengeance. Even though I felt as if I could break apart from frus­tra­tion and con­fu­sion. Why couldn't Thomas just call me? Or Josh? Or any­one? Why was he do­ing this to us?

Was it be­cause the whis­pers were right? Had some­thing hor­ri­ble ac­tu­al­ly hap­pened to him? A chill raced down my back and I squirmed, mov­ing my shoul­ders around, try­ing to shake it. Ar­iana watched ev­ery move I made as if each one held the key to my soul.

“So. What are you go­ing to tell them?” Ar­iana asked, her pierc­ing blue eyes full of point­ed con­cern.

“Who?”

“The po­lice,” Ar­iana said in a low voice.

I paused. “What do you mean?”

Ar­iana turned and stepped so close to me I could have count­ed the pores on her nose if she'd had any. Her skin was as per­fect as porce­lain.

Porce­lain. Toi­lets. Bile. Ugh.

“I mean, you're Thomas's girl­friend. They're def­inite­ly go­ing to ask you a lot of ques­tions,” Ar­iana said. “You'd bet­ter know what you're go­ing to say be­fore you go in there.”

My throat went dry. For a mo­ment I felt like I was com­plete­ly out­side my body. She could not mean what I thought she meant. A cool breeze lift­ed her white-?blond hair and caused her scarf to dance. Be­hind her some guy shout­ed at an­oth­er. Ar­iana didn't move or flinch or blink.

43

“Ar­iana ... I don't know where Thomas is,” I said fi­nal­ly.

Ar­iana stared in­to my eyes, search­ing. Search­ing so thor­ough­ly that heat start­ed to prick­le all over my body. So thor­ough­ly that I found my­self won­der­ing if I did have some­thing to hide.

The mo­ment I thought that, Ar­iana smiled.

“Okay,” she said fi­nal­ly.

“What?”

“Noth­ing. But if you do want to talk be­fore you go in there, just let me know.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Slow­ly, Ar­iana backed away. “I'd bet­ter get to class.”

She lift­ed one shoul­der and gave me a small, know­ing glance be­fore turn­ing and strolling off. Left alone again, I couldn't help but no­tice all the stares. When­ev­er my eyes fell on some­one else, they quick­ly looked away. When­ev­er I got near any­one, they in­stant­ly stopped talk­ing. Was this what it was go­ing to be like for me now? Ev­ery­one talk­ing about me all the time and watch­ing my ev­ery move? I had known from the mo­ment I ar­rived at Eas­ton that I didn't just want to dis­ap­pear among the no­bod­ies, but I had nev­er want­ed this.

I checked my watch as I head­ed across the quad. Ten min­ute

s left be­fore class. I need­ed a friend­ly ear. Some­one who could calm me down and re­mind me why I was here. I dropped on­to the near­est bench, pulled out my cell, and di­aled my broth­er, who was miles up­on miles away at Penn State. He picked up on the fifth ring.

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Source: readsnovelonline.net