Colors Read Online Free

quickly as the sick feeling came over me, it subsides. I straighten up. No more colors, no more panic.
    “No—I’m okay,” I tell her, the trembling in my body leaving. “I don’t know what it was.”
    I look at Melissa and smile, acting like nothing happened . Thank God for the acting training. “I guess I just needed some fresh air. Let’s take the sidewalk out here to class. You game?”
    “Sure,” she says, a trace of skepticism in her voice. Her look tells me she wants to know more and doesn’t buy my story about just needing fresh air. I slip on my best Satine attitude, but thankfully she lets it go.
    “Now, what was it you were saying?” I ask.
    “Saying?” Melissa stares at me, looking like she has no idea what I’m asking. Then, I guess, she remembers. Having your boyfriend freak out on you can do that to you.
    “Well,” she says, “I was telling Brother Kenny, the choir director at my church, about our solos in ‘How Lovely Are the Dwellings.’ He knows the piece, says it’s one of his favorites. He wanted to hear a tape of us. Yeah, I know. He’s with it in so many ways, but he still thinks people use tape recorders. Well, anyway, yesterday I took my iPod and played him the MP3. He loved us. He wants us to do it at church next Sunday. He said he’d teach the church choir the choral part. Great, huh?”
    My knees begin to tremble again. Church. Stained glass. Brother Gramm. “I don’t know, Melissa,” I say. “I’m not much of a churchgoer. I haven’t been to church”—I’m about to say, since my folks died, but instead I say—“since I came to live with Aunt Jenny. She’s not very religious. She might not approve of my going to church.”
    “Nonsense, Neil. Your Aunt Jenny never forbids you to do anything. She’s not going to start now, not over going to church, anyway,” she says. “And it’s not like I’m trying to convert you or anything. I just think it would be fun. We both like to perform. Don’t think of it as church. Think of it as Sunday theater.”
    How can I say no without hurting her feelings?
    “ Please .” She draws the word out, batting her eyelashes at me. “Please, please, please, please.” She shakes her short strawberry blonde curls as she begs me.
    She grabs my cheeks with both hands. She puts her face right in front of mine, touching her turned-up button nose to mine, and forces me to stare into her rich lavender eyes. She gazes at me with a how can you refuse me? look.
    “Okay—I’ll do it,” I say, forcefully pulling away from her. “But don’t expect me to do any ‘amen’ shouting, you hear?”

Chapter 3
     
     
    T REMBLING OVERTAKES me as the gigantic sign comes into view:
    THE CHURCH of SHELTON ROAD
    I steer the car into the parking lot and park near the huge sign. This will be the first church I’ve been in since…. No. I will not let those nightmares start. No spiders. Not tonight.
    I shake my head to clear it. A long, cleansing breath of early evening air.
    I can do this. It’s just a building, a performance space.
    The Church of Shelton Road is one of those “mega churches” that are all over TV. You can’t miss them, channel surfing on Sunday morning. Melissa said they have five thousand members. The complex is gigantic, with three enormous buildings set among a forest of oak trees and a parking lot that can hold thousands of cars. Melissa’s directions were clear: go in the door exactly opposite the sign, and that would put me in the choir practice room.
    As I step into the building, Melissa runs up. She must have been lying in wait.
    “I see you found us,” she says, stunning in a red dress that shows off her hair. She’s beaming a huge, sparkling smile. If I weren’t so anxious here and if this weren’t a church, of all places, I could easily grab her and plant a big one on her lips. But as I calm myself and regain proper decorum, the doubts about Melissa return. Is she glad to see me, anxious to show off our