Dream Chasers Read Online Free Page A

teenagers could hide a mountain of feelings beneath a flighty façade.
    One girl sat apart, staring at her hands and twisting her many rings round and round her fingers. She looked harder than the others, her skin disfigured by acne despite a heavy layer of makeup, and her body stuffed into the trashy clothes that young girls thought they had to wear to gain the attention of boys. The school dress code had been circumvented by a loose-fitting, virtually transparent white overshirt, beneath which was visible a lacy tank top stretched over size D breasts and an expanse of tanned stomach accented by a silver ring through her belly button. Her blonde hair escaped her ponytail in a cascade of ringlets that framed her face. She’d be a very pretty girl if not for the acne, the ton of smoky eye make-up she didn’t need, and the sulky frown.
    Jenna walked over to introduce herself.
    â€œCrystal Adams,” the girl responded, accepting Jenna’s hand in her moist, limp grip. Jenna ushered her into the little office the school had provided her. The door had a glass insert which prevented privacy, and the space inside was overtaken by a desk and computer, but she squeezed Crystal into the guest chair and contrived to look as welcoming as she could.
    Crystal twisted her rings. Seven, Jenna noted with interest. Some were discreet bands of silver, others gaudy clusters of cheap stones.
    â€œWhat brings you here, Crystal?” Jenna prompted eventually.
    Crystal shrugged. “Have they found her? Do they know what happened?”
    Jenna shook her head. “Did you know her?”
    â€œOh, yeah, we were friends. Kind of.”
    Jenna waited, not sure what to ask. Then she remembered her Rogerian training: when in doubt, reflect. “Kind of?”
    â€œNo, we were. But like, we weren’t in classes together or anything, but we sometimes hung out. Like at parties and stuff.”
    â€œAre you worried about her?”
    â€œWell...I guess.”
    â€œAny reason in particular?
    â€œWell, you know, just that she’s missing, and that she...” Crystal trailed off and twisted her ring savagely. “I’m wondering if I should go to the police. I mean, I don’t want to get people in trouble.”
    â€œDo you know something about what’s happened to her?”
    In answer, Crystal sneaked a glance through the glass panel in the door and slouched lower in her chair, as if to hide herself from the students outside. “This is confidential, right? You can’t tell anybody...?”
    Jenna nodded and was just trying to formulate the limits of confidentiality when Crystal leaned forward. “I think she was going to meet someone. I mean, not that I’m saying it was him! He’d never do anything like that. But I think she might have thought there was more going on with him than there was. She was—like—obsessed with him.”
    â€œAnd he didn’t feel that way about her?”
    â€œIt was just a fling to him, you know. That’s the way him and his friends are. She’s pretty, and she’s sexy, and what guy wouldn’t go for her? But he could have any girl he wanted, and he wasn’t going to drop his whole life for her, you know what I mean?”
    Jenna knew only too well. How many men had drooled over her own size D breasts and promised the moon just for a chance to get their hands on them? But women were just objects to them, one well-shaped body as good as the next. She’d told them all to go to hell.
    â€œSo what do you think happened?” she asked the girl.
    â€œI don’t know what happened. I phoned her cell a bunch of times the day she disappeared, because I wanted to tell her not to push it. But she never answered. Never returned my calls either.” Crystal looked up, squinting through her eyeliner. “Do you think I should tell the police that?”
    Jenna weighed the information the girl had provided. Beyond her