The Eden Series: The Complete Collection Read Online Free Page A

Thankfully, his mother agreed to call the office and explain his absence. Before second period, someone had spilled milk in the hall, which had made the tile floors just slippery enough to send him flat on his ass as everyone rushed to class. If that wasn’t humiliating enough, it also happened to be right in front of Melissa’s locker. Ethan hurried over to help him up, but it didn’t save him from being the laughing stock of the whole school again.
    “Are you okay, Aiden?” Melissa asked, bending down while he still sat on the floor.
    “I’m fine,” he mumbled awkwardly, taking Ethan’s hand and hauling himself up. Walking away, he cursed himself for not taking the opportunity to spark up an actual conversation with Melissa. He only had had four conversations with her to date, and all them had been school related. That could have been his chance to have a regular one without answering a question about an assignment, or their homework, but he blew it. Figures, he thought crossly.
    During lunch, he had the presence of mind to sit himself on the opposite side of the cafeteria from Bentley and his crew of older douche bags. Thankfully, Ethan decided to skip during his lunch and sat with him as company. Aiden suspected he did it on purpose, to save him from any further humiliation, but neither said anything.
    “Look how pretty she is when she laughs,” Aiden said, finding himself staring at Melissa from where he sat. She had such a pretty mouth, and always swung her head back when she laughed really hard. Her chestnut hair came down to the middle of her back. She wore the front with a blunt bang along her forehead. She had huge brown eyes that seemed to sparkle.
    Ethan looked over his shoulder uninterestedly. “I don’t know what you see in her,” he commented.
    Without thinking, Aiden picked up a fry and threw it at Ethan’s face. “What do you mean? She’s gorgeous.”
    “Are you defending your woman’s honour with a tossed fry?” Ethan asked with raised eyebrows. “Should I bring in the big guns and start throwing pudding?”
    “No!” He held up his hands in defence. “That’s all I need, a food fight started by me.”
    “It’s not that I don’t think she’s pretty, but I don’t find her pretty enough to be worshiped, quite like you seem to.”
    Aiden shrugged his shoulders in disagreement. “Everyone has their type, I suppose.”
    “If you say so.”
    The two were eating in silence when suddenly a shadow was cast across their table. They both looked up simultaneously to see Bentley and his minions standing there.
    “Well, what do we have here?” he snickered, with his crooked smile.
    “Leave them alone, Bentley,” Aiden heard Melissa say from behind him.
    “Have we offended you in some way, geek?” he asked, looking straight at Aiden. “Yesterday you’re sitting by us, and today you’re all the way over here? What? Do we smell or something?”
    Saliva began to build in Aiden’s mouth. The three boys crowded around them. Ethan sat rigidly across from him, looking to Aiden for some resolve.
    “We just decided to sit over here,” Aiden replied hesitantly. “It had nothing to do with you.”
    Bentley placed both hands on the table, bending down so his face was level with Aiden’s. “For some reason, I don’t really believe you, four eyes,” he sneered. The two other thugs chuckled beside him. “I take offence that you’ve decided to move away from me, and I don’t like being offended.” Aiden shut his eyes, praying the guy wasn’t going to hit him or something. “You’d better watch yourself, or your next two years here will be hell.” He started to stand back up, and Aiden thanked God it was over. It wasn’t. With one fluid motion of his hand, Bentley flipped the tray of food that lay in front of Aiden, spilling all of it down the front of his clothes. The other kids sitting around them began to laugh.
    “Bentley!” Melissa yelled out. “What the hell is wrong with