Chasing Forever Down (Drenaline Surf Series) Read Online Free Page A

Looking into colleges?” I ask.
    “ Totally,” she says as we leave the park. “This is the only chance you’ll have. Senior year is coming up, and you’ll need to send off applications, so you need to make up your mind. And I’m the friend who so desperately wants to see other parts of the country. They’ll buy it.”
     
    We spend the next two hours scouting colleges online and requesting brochures and welcome packets to be sent to Linzi’s aunt’s post office box.
    “ We’ll pick them up on our way back into town so our parents will see how much info we collected,” Linzi says.
    We print out driving directions from college to college and prepare our coinciding stories for all parental units. Two hours and a few phone calls later, my dad lectures me about financial responsibility and says something about getting a few prepaid debit cards and having the oil changed first. Even when Mom pulls out her extra luggage, it doesn’t fully register that we’ve pulled this off.
    “So how are we packing?” Linzi asks from behind me.
    I don’t break my stare from the closet. I was actually asking myself the same thing. We have no clue where we’re headed, so weather reports won’t do us any good.
    “Pack for summer but take jeans and a jacket just in case,” I say.
     
    As soon as Linzi’s headlights fade from my driveway, I sign online again to dig deeper into Spence and the meaning behind origami stars. Apparently giving someone a jar of these stars is a good luck token, like a four-leaf clover or a rabbit’s foot. I wonder what it means if you just give someone one star. Maybe it was his way of laughing in my face, like “Haley, here’s one star, just to tease you because I know you’ll have zero luck ever finding me again.”
    I twirl the star around between my fingertips. He left it behind. He talked about the stars and wishes and good luck. This stupid paper star means something to someone somewhere out there on this crazy place they call planet Earth. I tuck the star into the hidden zipper in my purse. It’s going with me on this forever chasing mission. And one day, I’ll make Spence Burks explain it to me…whenever we find him.
    I open a new window in the browser and key in his name. Enough with paper stars. I need to know who he was. There are some things I just can’t say in front of Linzi. To her, this guy is just another “dream kid” – her term for kids who have it all and could have anything they wanted in life but dream of something ridiculous…like being a supermodel or playing professional sports.
    Sometimes I wonder what she says about me when I’m not around, if she calls me a dream kid and complains about my ungratefulness that my parents can afford to send me to any college of my choice. What she doesn’t know about dream kids is that we don’t have choices. Spence Burks knew this, and he made the ultimate choice: life or death.
    The internet articles still don’t tell me about the dream-kid-turned-forever-chaser I met last night. They tell me about his death, the memorial service two towns over, and the candlelight vigil held on the Florida beach when the recovery mission was finally called off. I read all the nostalgic remarks made by his classmates about how he died just short of graduating high school and starting his life. He’d already received acceptance letters to three colleges and planned to pursue a career as a lawyer. I almost wish they could see him now. Lawyers don’t walk around with paper stars, and they definitely don’t wear Converse.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    The never-ending road turns to gravel, and I almost lose all hope just short of seeing the sign that reads Stella’s Salon, 3 Miles . Linzi reminds me to let off the accelerator because the last thing we need is a speeding ticket from a hick town deputy, especially since our parents think we’re in Nashville right now. These are the longest three miles of my life.
    We pull up in front of a small white