chapter 23
Theo and I hung out for the next week, not doing much of anything. I had hoped that Henry would have visited me or let me know how he was doing, but I didn't hear from him. I tried calling him twice, but his phone was off. I was too drained to analyze his up and down evasiveness — I figured that avoidance was just how he dealt with things.
It was strange being back in school, like it had been on the first day. Like sleepwalking. Maybe things would get better now, I thought. I rounded the hall to go to homeroom when I stopped dead in my tracks.
Henry and Lainey were in the hallway, talking intimately. Her hands were grasping the lapels of his shirt. As I stood there, she reached up and kissed him on the lips. My throat ran dry, tasting betrayal. Lainey broke it off, smiling brightly and waved him goodbye as she sauntered off to class.
I walked up to him, my legs barely able to support me in my shock. After all that we'd been through, all that we'd seen...
"What the hell was that?" I demanded.
His voice was flat as he looked into my eyes.
"Lainey and I are together now, Ariel. I'm sorry."
Without another word, he turned and walked away from me. It felt as though he might as well have thrown a punch at my stomach.
"I am done with boys, forever. There is too much drama," I told Theo later in Gym. "I think we've been through enough of that lately."
We were performing belly dancing to an instructional DVD, while Coach Fletcher updated charts on the sidelines. Lainey looked so incredibly smug; it took everything I had not to track down a tennis ball.
"It is time for thirty cats," I said.
"I wouldn't go that far yet," Theo said, laughing gently. She rotated her hip in a circle, but she went a bit too far, wobbling and falling into me. We sat on the floor laughing, as the rest of the class turned to look at us.
I didn't notice Nurse Callie come into the room. I was paying too much attention to our clumsiness. Laughter was a release.
But I saw her now, as she and Coach Fletcher came over to where Theo and I were getting up. Coach's face was more serious than usual, which was saying something for someone so humorless.
"Ariel, I'm here to take you to the office," Nurse Callie said.
I looked between their faces. "Am I in trouble?" I asked.
"No, honey," Callie said. She was very quiet. "Don't worry about changing. Just come with me."
I looked back at Theo, her frown mirroring my own. Everyone in class was still looking at us, the joyous belly dancer on the television unaware that she was dancing alone.
I walked with Nurse Callie to the office. It had already been a surreal nightmare of a day. How could anything else go wrong? The universe couldn't be that unfair.
Hugh and Claire were standing in front of the reception desk when Callie and I arrived.
"Everyone looks so serious," I said, trying to break the ice. They just looked at me solemnly.
"What are you doing out of work, mom? Did something happen?" I realized she didn’t correct me. This couldn't be good. They looked at each other. No one was telling me anything, and fear began to creep up on me.
"Tell me what it is," I said, panic rushing inside my chest.
But some part of me knew.
I had known the words were coming all along.
"They found Jenna," Hugh said, his voice cracking. It struck me as funny. She'd always driven him nuts. "She's dead."
The entire world shrunk down to the badly lit office. Everything I'd done and every word I'd said in the last few months. A distracting prickle hit the back of my eyes. I wiped off my cheek, and my hand glistened.
I was crying.
About the Author
Abigail Boyd (she prefers that you call her Abbey) has been writing ever since she can remember, and there was always a ghost in the story. In between watching Mystery Science Theater and making concoctions out of crackers, she is now pursuing her dream of making a living writing young adult fiction. Gravity is her first novel.
Look for the second book in the Gravity series, Uncertainty, coming soon.