Gravity Read Online Free Page A

since first he’d smiled at me and said my name.  I wanted to tell him that I’d rather die than be away from him.  I wanted to beg him to kiss me.  I wanted to beg him not to go.
    But I didn’t.
    I said nothing.  No words would come out, as if something beyond my control held my tongue.  I felt like screaming and crying, but couldn’t do either.  I was nearly paralyzed, and I was helpless to do anything about it.
    With a sad yet accepting nod, Trace carried me to the bed and gently deposited me in the center of it.  He pulled his hands out from beneath me with an excruciating slowness.  With every centimeter he withdrew from me, the tearing in my chest worsened, becoming a widespread agony that I thought might kill me. 
    Eyes never leaving mine, he straightened and stood looking down at me for what felt like hours before he spoke. 
    “I won’t give up on you.”  He said it quietly, but with a conviction that resonated in the deepest part of my soul, as if he and he alone were able to touch a piece of me that no one else could even fathom.
     Again, I said nothing.  It didn’t matter how much I wanted to.  I was unable to form the words that would express what I was feeling.  I was at a total loss.
    I managed a nod, which he returned along with a disappointed smile.  With that, I watched him turn reluctantly toward the door and open it.  He paused for another moment, turning only his head to the side so I could hear him.  In profile, I saw his lips move.
    “Happy birthday,” he whispered and then he disappeared into the hallway.
    When the door shut behind him, it seemed as though the dull sound sliced through my heart more efficiently than any scalpel could.  For one confused instant, I actually looked down at my chest to make sure I wasn’t bleeding, it hurt so profoundly.  I opened my mouth to cry out to him, but no sound emerged.  It was as if the universe itself refused to let me say the words that would bring Trace back, no matter how much I wanted exactly that.
    I wondered absently how I could know with a certainty that I couldn’t live without Trace.  I wondered how, in such a short time, someone could become like the air to me.  I had no answers or explanations, but I knew it was true nonetheless.  I couldn’t live without him and he was like the air to me.
    I don’t know how long I lay on the bed, aching over the loss of Trace, but it seemed like a thousand years had passed when Brady came to my door.
    He knocked softly and then called quietly, “You awake, P?”
    For a moment, I thought of not answering him, of just lying in misery for the rest of the night, until I could figure out what had gone wrong, what freakish things had happened out on the deck.  But, alas, I found that I couldn’t.  As much as my tongue refused to work with Trace, it refused not to work with Brady.
    “I’m awake,” I admitted, almost without thought.
    He pushed the door open and ambled bemusedly over to the bed and perched on the end.
    “I don’t even know what to say,” he began, very obviously out of sorts.
    I sat up in bed, suddenly feeling very prickly and defensive.
    “What is going on, Brady?  What happened?”
    He shrugged, his expression indicating he was as genuinely puzzled as I was.
    “I don’t know.  I swear, I have no idea.  It’s like all of a sudden, I saw Trace for who and what he really is.”
    “And what’s that?”
    Brady looked me dead in the eye.  He didn’t flinch, he didn’t grin, he didn’t look apologetic.  He simply looked sincere.  And worried.
    “The enemy.”
    Although his words made the hairs on my arms stand up, I couldn’t help but question such a ridiculous statement.
    “ The enemy?”
    “I know is sounds crazy, Peyton, but believe me, Trace is not who we thought he was.”
    “What is that even supposed to mean?”
    Brady’s lips tightened.
    “You’re just gonna have to trust me.”
    “Trust you?  When you just turned on your best friend