Page 79

Black spots blurred my vision and ice filled my veins.

A key? He had a key? To my room?

My chin began to tremble.

Barry lifted a hand to touch me but I jerked back before he could make contact. His eyes flared with anger. “Don’t be scared of me, damn it!” he hissed. But as soon as the comment left his mouth, he settled, seeming to realize he’d only frightened me more. Then his shoulders relaxed and his eyes turned sympathetic again. “Where did you go, honey? I was worried.”

Jerk. Pervert. Sicko. Creep.

As my insides raged and ranted, I lifting my chin. “I was here,” I said, my teeth clenching together hard, “in the living room, watching a movie with you. Don’t you remember?”

Barry looked like he was going to lose his temper again. But he didn’t press anymore. Pushing from the doorframe, he showed me his back and stormed down the hall away from me.

Chapter 22

“Ms. Holderread?”

Monday morning, I bypassed my locker and headed

straight for English class. I don’t know what possessed me, but the uncontrollable urge to talk to this specific instructor had me knocking on her door and poking my head into her room before the first bell rang.

She sat by herself at her desk, pen in hand as she graded papers. Lifting her face, she relaxed her features when she saw me.

“Grace.” She sounded genuinely happy to receive my company, so I stepped into her classroom. “What brings you by?”

I hesitated then started toward her desk, worrying a tattered notebook between my hands. “I’m sorry, but I can’t turn in my color assignment.”

She blinked. “Uh…” Stuttering a moment, she finally said, “But it’s not due for another few weeks. You still have plenty of time to finish it.”

I stared at the floor and rasped, “I can’t.”

Slowly, she stood and came around the desk to perch herself on the corner, directly in front of me. Her voice soft, she asked, “Why not?”

I blubbered. There’s no other word for it. “Because I…I don’t know what color I am.” I lifted the notebook I had been choking. “Every morning, I tried writing down each color I felt like, but it was always different. Never the same. I just…I don’t know who I am.”

Carefully, Ms. Holderread slipped the notebook from my cold, shaking hands. She skimmed through the first page without a word. The silence caused my tension to spike off the chart.

After a moment, the teacher glanced at me; her expression was impossible to read. Then without a word, she picked up a red pen off her desk and jotted down a single letter.

When she handed the notebook back, I gaped at the A, confused.

“But—”

“Grace.” She set her hand on my shoulder in a comforting embrace. “This right here shows me you’re one of the most self-aware young women I think I’ve ever met.”

After a blink—okay, two blinks—I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

Self-aware?

But I felt so confused. So lost.

“You’re a teenage girl, sweetheart. Growing and changing every day. As you’re trying to find out who you are and what you want to be, you have to experiment and try different things, alter clothes, friends, personalities.” She shook her head. “I don’t think anyone so young can truly be one color just yet. And you’re my only student who’s realized that.”

Baffled, I stared at her. “What, it was, like, a fluke assignment then? Some kind of trick question?”

She flushed and slipped out a rueful grin. “Well, honestly, I wasn’t expecting anyone to take the paper to heart quite the way you did. I’m sorry. I thought I’d get the usual, ‘I choose pink because I’m a girl and my hot pink tongue ring totally rocks.’”

I cracked a smile. “So…I got an A?”