Falling Under Read Online Free Page A

over his features. “You look lovely.”
    I wanted to scream or cry with frustration. I was frightened by what I was seeing, what I was feeling, but instead I answered, “Thank you.”
    He smiled and it was beautiful and horrible what I saw in it. Hope that should not be born and desire that could never bear fruit. Whether they were my feelings or his, I did not know.
    My fingers relaxed on the stem of the goblet and it slipped through my hands. In slow motion, the cup fell to the ground, spilling bloodred liquid throughout its descent.
    I awoke in my bed, my nightgown stained red.
     
    I leaned against the lockers waiting for Amelia to fetch her binder. I was so tired they needed to make a new word for tired. Every time I blinked, I swore the backs of my eyelids were made of sandpaper.
    Being friends with Donny, who worked in the admin office and knew things, also meant Ame and I got lockers in the Main instead of over the hill and dale where other juniors floundered between classes. It was auspicious considering that usually only seniors and sneetches were able to snag the coveted location.
    The Main was really the old high school—a two-story brick monster. Several decades ago, they expanded the campus, adding buildings that made it really hard to get to class on time because they were spaced so far apart. The closer you were to your senior year, the more classes you had in the Main. Also housed in the Main were the library, admin services, the student store, and the student lounge—aka Sneetch Central—in the corridor outside the library.
    “I have play practice after school tomorrow if you want to come over after,” Ame said, then stopped. “You’re really pale. Are you sure you’re okay?”
    Nodding, I pushed off the bank of lockers. “I just haven’t slept well the last two nights.”
    She dug in her pocket and handed me a quartz crystal. “This one restores energy. If you can keep it on your skin, it will work better.”
    I nodded, pretending I believed her.
    “I’m serious,” she said, reading my ambivalence. “I even bathed it in the healing powers of the waterfalls.”
    I didn’t want to patronize her, really I didn’t. But I didn’t believe all the stuff about the “mystical” waterfalls like she did.
    Our town, Serendipity Falls, was named for the nearby waterfalls of the same name. They were our town treasure—our tourist bait. Not only were they gorgeous, but there were several old legends attached to them, enchantment being one of them. Water nymphs, healing powers, love potions—the pool fed by the cascading water was said to have all that and more.
    “Put the crystal in your bra,” she suggested, knowing I would do no such thing. “How are things with your dad?”
    “Same as always, I guess.”
    Amelia always felt it was incredibly sad the way my father overcompensated for my lack of a mother. She made excuses for his irrational behavior based on his losing his one true love. I guess she’s the romantic of our trio. Donny pretty much thought my father was the devil. It never occurred to me to think of him one way or the other. Father was who he was.
    My mind wandered back to my strange dreams from the last two nights. They were, of course, dreams. Though I wouldn’t rule out sleepwalking, as I now had two ruined nightgowns that proved I’d been outside. Which was really disturbing. I thought maybe I should ask Father’s secretary to make me a doctor’s appointment . Sleepwalking outside was dangerous.
    As we walked down the hall, I pulled the band out of my hair to ease my growing headache and finger-combed my curls. As we passed the windows of the admin office, time blurred into slow motion. I shivered and a rush of cold seeped into the marrow of my bones as if someone had just stepped on my grave. And danced on it as well.
    It was him.
    He’d traded his coat and tails for jeans and a tight Abercrombie and Fitch tee, but it was him. I would have known him anywhere.
    I