The Color Of Grace Read Online Free Page A

“Loads,” I answered, lifting my nose and turning
back to move another two feet forward.
    “Good,” he said, following along behind me. “I hope you got
a couple of me.”
    Shoot! Why hadn’t I thought to take a picture of him? I
couldn’t beg Bridge to give me a copy of the one she’d taken either, or she’d
know how much I liked his attention to me.
    When I refused to answer, he must’ve
turned to her. I’m not too sure because obviously I wasn’t looking. But when I
glanced askance at her, she’d craned her head around. Her eyes grew huge and mortified
as if she’d been caught checking him out.
    “Hey, does she have a name?” he asked.
    I’ll love Bridge forever for her answer.
    Tilting up her chin a notch, she flung a piece of hair over
her shoulder and announced, “Why, yes, she does. Thanks for asking.” With that,
she hooked her arm through mine and swept us into a gap growing in the crowd.
    Number forty-two didn’t follow. I’m not sure if that relieved
me or depressed me. In any case, I didn’t see him anymore that night. And I
knew I wouldn’t see him again until I transferred to Southeast.
    But the countdown had definitely begun. I only had three
weeks left until I started a new life.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    Chapter 3

 
    “You know what I’m sick of?”
    “What’s that?” I asked, the only one to answer Bridget since
both Adam and Schy were busy coloring.
    The nerd herd decided to throw me a going-away party the
Saturday before my first day at Southeast. So there we were, seated at a table
for four in Garfield’s
Restaurant, waiting for our meals to arrive when Bridget decided to start a
conversation about—
    “Sex.”
    Adam and Schy paused and looked up in unison like the twins
they were, matching expressions of confusion and surprise flickering across
their faces. Bridget’s answer threw me off guard too, but after knowing her
since Kindergarten, I’d grown used to her out-of-the-blue and totally bizarre
topics.
    Casually, I leaned forward and sucked Dr. Pepper through my
straw. After a healthy-sized swallow, I dryly answered, “I wasn’t aware you’d
had any experience with sex to grow sick of it yet.”
    Bridget rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking
about.”
    “Then what the heck are you talking about?” Schy demanded.
    “I’m doing research on teen movies for an English paper.”
    Adam, Schy, and I groaned.
    Pausing, Bridget glanced at us. “What?”
    “I hate it when you do research for a class project,” Schy
muttered.
    Schy was into art. Drawing, painting, water coloring,
doodling. Before beginning school, she’d gone by her full given name, Shi Ann.
But by first grade, she’d shortened it to Shi. By fifth, however, she’d
unofficially changed the spelling to Schy, thinking that would give her more
pizzazz, when honestly it only made everyone call her Sky instead of Shi. I had
a feeling she’d revert to Shi Ann before finishing high school just to keep up the
change. But that was just an educated guess. For all I knew, she’d want to go
by Ann next.
    “Remember when you wrote that paper on George Washington?”
Adam said. “We had to hear about the Revolutionary War for three weeks
straight.” Groaning, he went back to coloring a drum set on the white paper
tablecloth.
    He was the musician of the group, always writing songs and
singing to us. I can still remember when he’d saved up enough money to buy his
first guitar. Thank goodness, he’d actually learned how to play. We girls
probably would’ve strangled him long ago as much as he fiddled with the thing.
But since he could carry a decent tune, it was kind of cool to get to listen to
him so often.
    “Just think about it,” Bridget went on, oblivious to our
cringing. “Almost every teen movie geared toward the male gender throughout
movie-making history is about one thing: trying to find a girl to sleep with
him. There’s Porky’s , Dazed and Confused , American Pie ,