Gravity Read online

  Orange flames jumped out and licked the distorted, amethyst sky. The building was on fire, and Jenna was inside. My mouth contorted in a scream.

  I woke up in my living room, sprawled across the couch. My mouth still hung open, as if sagging from a broken hinge, caught in a soundless cry. A dream. It was all a dream.

  The thought hit me immediately, but I couldn't believe it, despite the fact that I felt drowsy from napping. Familiar pressure rose up to my chest, the kind that never made it to my eyes. I hadn't cried since the day Jenna disappeared.

  But I had seen her...hadn't I?

  Claire leaned her head out from the kitchen, a dish towel slung on her shoulder.

  "Are you okay, Ariel?" she asked, her blonde eyebrows knit with concern. "You were talking in your sleep."

  I nodded, still dazed. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just slept hard, I guess."

  I was miles away from fine. The dream, if that's what it had been, had felt so real. The way dreams are in movies that they never are in real life.

  "I was going to wake you up anyway," Claire continued casually, not noticing my distress. "You know if you nap longer then a half hour you can't sleep at night. Been that way since you were little." She went back to unloading the dishwasher, and I heard cupboard doors opening and shutting.

  A half hour? My eyes flicked to the clock on top of the entertainment center. Five-thirty PM. Claire was right. But it felt like I'd been asleep for days. I remembered it was still my birthday, and the party was over.

  Sunlight streamed in through the slit between the curtains. I pulled them back, gazing at the street. Jenna wasn't there, although I didn't really expect her to be. A few younger kids rode past on bicycles, laughing. A golden retriever chased after their tires, barking playfully. The perfectly ordinary blue sky mocked me.

  I waited, watching the road with desperate, bleary eyes. My face still felt mushed from my nap, and I didn't feel entirely there, one foot stuck in the dream world. My friend didn't materialize. Jenna and the orphanage were already fading, leaving an imprint in my mind like exposed film.

  My throat burned raw with thirst, and I stood up to go to the kitchen. My legs ached, probably from being squashed on the couch. I stretched my toes through my socks and padded across the room.

  Our house had a fairly open floor plan. The kitchen was separated from the dining room and living room by a wall of neat, glass-front cupboards that displayed Claire's sparkling china and crystal. I went to the sink and ran the faucet, gulping water so fast it spluttered up my nose.

  "Why are you so parched?" Claire asked. She was now sitting at the dinner table, reading glasses parked on top of her dark blonde hair.

  "My mouth is just dry," I said. I could have gulped down an entire sink full.

  "I put your new backpack and your school supplies on the basement stairs."

  "Good, thanks." I leaned against the counter, shutting my eyes. For a moment, I saw Jenna running up to the orphanage's front door. Glancing back at me, like unfinished business.

  "Make sure you get to sleep at a good time tonight," Claire continued, sounding distracted. "Hugh has to drive you to school early tomorrow." No more bus, at least.

  Lifting her ever-present travel mug to her lips, she sipped her coffee. Her laptop waited patiently to open for business beside her. No sign of the cake mess remained on the spotless table.

  It was the first day of sophomore year tomorrow. I was trying not to think about it. Denial had become my go-to response.

  "Did you have a good birthday?" Claire asked.

  She wanted me to say yes, but I shrugged instead.

  "It was fine. I feel older."

  "You are older," she said, smiling wistfully at me. Undisguised worry filled her pale eyes, deepening the creases around them. "I don't like how fast time speeds by. Two more years and you'll be off to college."

  "And then I'll come home and find my room has been turned into a scrapbooking nook," I said. My light words hid the fact that my insides were still shaking. I pulled out the chair across from Claire, but didn't sit.

  Claire stared at me, slowly assessing me. "I'm sure your friends were just busy, Ariel."

  What friends? I thought automatically. She must have thought I was depressed about the lack of fanfare.

  "I didn't have enough time to get organized beforehand, with this Smith-Bower proposal I've been working on."

  Still feeling detached, I bit down on my index fingernail. The party, or lack thereof, had been the farthest worry from my mind, but to my mother, not doing things exactly right every single time felt like a deadly sin. Imperfection equaled failure.

  "Did you want to talk about something?" Claire asked, studying me again. I realized I had been staring off into space.

  I hesitated for a second, drawing breath to speak. I wished I could talk about what I'd seen. But I didn't feel like I could open up to her, especially not about some bizarro dream involving my missing friend.

  "No. Never mind."

  CHAPTER 2

  HUGH STAYED SILENT during the car ride the next morning. I hadn't woken up so early in months, and I had staggered through getting dressed. Fog still hovered above the cold ground, swirling around trees and beneath cars.

  Hugh had to get to work early, so I was going to be at school before anyone else. He owned an art gallery in town called Erasmus, and it was an all-consuming passion for him.

  I hadn't slept well at all the night before, too busy worrying about how the day would go.

  "You'll do fine," Hugh assured me, idling his Mazda in front of the stone steps that led to Hawthorne's entryway. I could practically feel him itching to give me a pep talk, and I braced myself to pretend to agree with what he had to say.

  "Have a good day."

  I frowned. "That's it?"

  Confusion crossed his face, his hazel eyes narrowing. "Is what it?"

  "Those are your sage words of advice? Drive-through talk? Would I like fries with that?"

  He chuckled, his tension visibly dispersing. "Good to see your sense of humor is still intact. Now get out of the car."

  I stepped out reluctantly onto the sidewalk, and watched the Mazda switch gears and drive off. Listening to the engine fade, I wondered if I should have begged him to let me ditch. Just one day. Deep down I knew that one day could easily become a month.

  Two years ago, Hawthorne High had been ripped down and rebuilt on the old foundation. I remembered riding past the construction site, watching workers dangle precariously from support beams inside.

  The new Hawthorne was an impressive structure, beautiful and austere, the jewel in the crown that showed the state how seriously our town, Hell, took academics. More than a few seniors were accepted into Ivy League schools every year.

  I tugged at the hem of my shirt, black with capped sleeves. I hoped the choice was all right; I had abandoned more colorful options in a pile on my bed. Would I appear too depressed? I hadn't worn anything but pajamas and sweat pants in a while, and I had no idea about trends.

  I was just putting off the inevitable. Striding up the steps, I opened the door, and tore the Band-aid off.

  HAWTHORNE HELLCATS HAVE SPIRIT! read the banner above the interior doors. The school colors of purple and gold made it glow.

  Inside, the familiar smell of canned spaghetti and evil assaulted my nose. I decided to walk around and kill time, instead of sitting and wallowing in my own anxiety. The surroundings were familiar after a few minutes: the slant of the overhead lights, the muddy color of the speckled, hospital-grade floor tiles. It didn't take me long to find all the classes on my schedule.

  Throughout the school, the violet lockers were airing out, towels hung off the doors to prop them open. The faint scent of industrial strength cleaner wafted out.

  I wandered to the electives hall last, locating the classroom for Painting and Drawing. Everything from woodshop to medical careers had been jammed together there, like leftovers.
<
br />   I peered in the darkened glass of art room B's window, where pencil sketches had been taped up. The sketches looked perfect until I inspected them closer and made out the amateur, asymmetrical curves and eraser marks. Still better than anything my unskilled hands could produce.

  An earsplitting bang ricocheted around me. I jumped back, clutching my chest. Was that a gun? Some outcast trying to blow up the school? My mind reeled, instantly seeing Hawthorne on a breaking news report.

  The sound had been distinctly metallic. Fear stiffened my neck, but I forced my head to turn. All of the lockers had shut, the towels dropped in gray lumps.

  My heart beat too hard, hammering beneath my ribs. I ran down and out of the hallway, away from the lockers. There had to be a logical reason, but I felt no forced air, no breeze. Nothing to cause the lockers to shut so swiftly and all at once.

  Nothing rational.

  My pulse beat in my wrists. Cocking my head back over my shoulder, I gasped. The locker doors once again stood open, as if nothing had happened. The towels were undisturbed over the sides, yet my ears still rang from the slamming sound.

  I've watched more horror movies than I can name, and I always get mad at the heroine for running away from her fear (and then, inevitably, breaking her ankle or shoe heel).

  Forcing my unwilling body to turn fully around, I crept cautiously past the lockers, waiting for whatever trick had been played on me to repeat itself.

  Nothing happened. I pushed one purple door with the tip of my finger and it squeaked as it swung gently back on its hinges.

  How did I just imagine that? I asked myself silently. Am I losing my mind?

  ###

  "Good morning students," Principal McPherson said cheerily over the crackling intercom in homeroom. "Welcome to a brand new school year."

  A lone, sarcastic whoop went up from a boy in the back, causing his comrades to giggle. I rolled my eyes as my forehead hit the smooth surface of my desk.

  "Now's the time to put your best foot forward," McPherson continued. "All it takes is a positive attitude and the willingness to keep improving, and you can achieve any goal."

  I tuned out his voice as he continued to give his pep talk. I wasn't the only one; loud conversations started up around me about last weekend's parties, and who had held their liquor the best.

  "I also wanted to extend thanks to the Thornhill Society, for the new improvements to the gymnasium," McPherson said a few minutes later, causing my ears to perk up. "As well as the decorative stone fountain that greeted you all this morning."

  I had barely paid attention to the fountain, but it was surely expensive, beautiful and totally unnecessary. The Thornhill Society comprised the wealthiest citizens in town, those that made six figure incomes and spent money like it was going out of style. The parents of the popular kids, who owned more than just businesses in Hell.

  When I walked into the girl's locker room, it reeked of raspberry body spray. A few girls were primping in front of the full-length wall mirror, one of them using a sizzling flat iron on her frizzy hair.

  I often wondered if I had been born too much of a tomboy. Even though I thought I had the basics of makeup and dressing myself down, I wasn't obsessed like so many others seemed to be. Primping before getting sweaty in PE made no sense.

  My name was taped to a locker, misspelled as usual—I wasn't a font. As I changed into a plain pair of shorts and a t-shirt with a faded Mackinaw Island logo, I overheard two girls gossiping nearby on a bench. My two least favorite girls, it turned out, and in the worst possible class they could be in.

  "I know Henry likes me already," Lainey Ford bragged. "I can see it in his eyes."

  She was the most popular girl in school, with a waterfall of perfectly bleached platinum hair and a closet full of clothes with designer labels. She wore a different outfit every day of the month.

  "How do you know that?" Madison Taylor asked. She was the loyal planet that orbited Lainey, never leaving her side.

  Lainey had been patting concealer on her nonexistent skin flaws. She stopped and narrowed her cocoa brown eyes at Madison.

  "Because he's perfect for me," Lainey said simply. "His family is the only one in Hell that's in the same league as mine."

  Lainey never shut up about the fact that her family was obscenely rich. Her father owned several businesses in town, including the tanning salon, which was why Lainey's skin glowed like an orange Creamsicle. Both of her parents were card-carrying members of the Thornhill Society.

  "Not to mention, he's gorgeous," Lainey giggled. "And why wouldn't he want me? Every boy in this school wants me."

  "I know that! I didn't mean anything," Madison backtracked, stumbling over her spoken words. It was obvious she knew exactly how quickly she could be replaced. "I just mean, how do you know so much about boys?"

  "Experience," Lainey said, flipping her hair. "As far as Henry is concerned, there's no way I'm letting anyone else in this school touch him. The first girl that gets near him, I'll go ballistic."

  He must be something, I thought, chucking my street clothes in the font locker and spinning the combination.

  Lainey had been in love with Ambrose Slaughter, our aptly named school bully, since our juice box days. I figured I'd hate this Henry; another idiot more concerned with the label on his jeans than the brain in his head. Another addition the school didn't need: expensive, beautiful and unnecessary.

  An annual fitness test kicked off gym. We had to perform situps and sprints, along with other mundane, novice activities. Coach Fletcher, a woman without a drop of humor in her blood, watched over the proceedings with the seriousness of an Olympic trainer.

  My fellow students, even the athletes, didn't show much dedication. When the time came for pushups, most of the girls opted to do them standing, giggling about their boobs.

  Whenever anyone even slightly uncoordinated dared perform in front of Lainey, she scoffed and rolled her eyes hard enough to clunk against the sockets. She and Madison were both idols of the girl's basketball team, and Hawthorne was extremely competitive about athletics.

  I wasn't bad at sports when I attempted them, I just had no interest. I would have rather been at home reading.

  "Hurry up," Lainey squawked to my back when I was up for sprints. "Some of us have lives."

  If only witty comebacks came easy for me. I tried hard to think of one, to no avail. After I sprinted from one duct-taped line to the other and back, Coach clicked her stopwatch.

  "Not bad." Coach nodded at the watch, as if it had been in control of my legs.

  "Not good, either," Madison said, not attempting to whisper.

  Lainey tittered, a sound tainted with malice. My sneakers squeaked on the polished hardwood as I retreated to the bleachers. Lainey's pointy shoulder stuck out and smashed into my collarbone. I rubbed the sore spot, ignoring her as I passed.

  This wasn't going to be fun.

  ###

  The day dragged on, and I continued sleepwalking. I hated to admit it, even in the privacy of my thoughts, but I felt lost. It hadn't been so bad at home, where I could go on autopilot and coast through my excuse of a life.

  At lunch, instead of trying to find a table in the packed commons, I traded my crumpled dollars for a bag of chips and a pop and headed back to the entrance hall.

  Certain I would be alone, I was surprised when I stepped around the corner. A boy was standing alone in the front vestibule. A black sweatshirt hood masked his hair, and he appeared to be staring out of the windows overlooking the parking lot. His posture suggested he was debating whether to come inside or take off running.

  Cranky that I wasn't alone as I'd wanted, I sat in one of the cubbies lining the side wall. The bag of chips opened with a pop, but I had absolutely no appetite.

  Your love is all I think about was graffitied on the cubby seat. "Love" had been scratched out, a little arrow drawn predictably to "sex" in Sharpie.

  I cracked my hist
ory book on my lap and flipped through it. The front doors swung open with a blast of warm air and vestibule boy stepped inside. I hoped he would leave me be and continue down the hall. I didn't want to be around people, which is why I'd taken such pains to stay out of the commons.

  I noticed all at once that he was extremely attractive. He had an angular jaw beneath full lips, wide brown eyes and a cute, defined nose. A face that would make any girl do a double-take. I realized with embarrassment that I was staring, and quickly tore my eyes away from him.

  I became occupied with a fascinating oil painting in my textbook. Middle-aged men in white curly wigs were pointing weaponry at one another.

  "Why did I come here?" the boy groaned out loud. His voice was deep and rich, almost musical.

  I looked up, reacting as though he'd spoken to me, even though I knew he hadn't.

  "I should have stayed at home," he continued to himself. He was staring up at the ceiling like it held cosmic answers. "Finished my game, taken a nap. All better options than this place."

  "You know, talking to yourself is the first sign you're going crazy." The phantom voice surprised me. Then I realized I was the one who'd spoken. Oh.

  He noticed me for the first time, looking at me curiously. I felt a little embarrassed for both of us. Him for possibly being mentally imbalanced, me for thinking his rambling had anything to do with me, a stranger.

  A smile spread over his handsome face. It was so huge and bright as to be almost goofy. His dark eyes lit up, like I was the most interesting person he'd ever seen. My stomach dropped as the moisture retreated from my mouth.

  "Sorry to inflict my inner monologue on you," he said, tilting his head. "I have a bad habit of having full conversations with myself. And yeah, I guess it's possible I'm a little nuts."

  "That's okay," I said, my voice cracking. I cleared my throat, still so dry. "I was just saying. Sometimes the voices in my head are more interesting than real people, too."

  I couldn't believe I said that. A blush burned up my cheeks, but he surprised me by laughing.

  Normally my jokes clunked like dead weight. If I was lucky, those around me were polite enough to sidestep my failed attempts at wit, without making a cartoon pratfall noise.