There was nothing remarkable about that day. It began like any other, the usual mad rush out the door, me trying to apply mascara in the car and Rory deliberately poking me in the side, just to be annoying. But when Sycamore High came into view, my mom didn’t slow down.
“Mom! You drove right past the gate,” I exclaimed.
“I did, didn’t I?” She blinked like she was taking in her surroundings for the first time. “I just went blank for a minute.” Her embarrassment made me soften my tone.
“Someone needs their morning coffee. Are you okay?”
“Of course, just sleep deprived.” She massaged her temples with her fingertips.
“Maybe you need a spa day. You work way too hard.”
“Maybe we could use a spa day.” She grinned. “We haven’t hung out just the two of us in a while.” I knew she missed that. So did I, but life got in the way and somehow we never found the time.
“Let’s do it,” I said before she waved me out of the car.
I grabbed my backpack and watched her pull away from the curb, a little more cautiously than usual. “Be careful!” I called after her, but I didn’t think she heard me.
That was the last time I saw her alive. I wished I’d said I love you. For a while after she died, I was tormented by the idea that I could have done more, like told her to go home or call my dad. It probably wouldn’t have changed anything. And at least now I knew she wasn’t as faraway as I thought.
Through the window, I watched the student body of Sycamore High arrive. There were plenty of parking spaces, but I’d chosen the one farthest from the entrance. I wanted my return to be as low-key as possible.
I turned my head briefly and saw Zac Green on the front steps, coming in from training. He’d been my crush for as long as I could remember. I half raised my hand in greeting. Zac smiled back and headed inside. I was distracted by the sound of French-manicured nails rapping urgently on my window. Sam and Natalie stood outside the car, examining the pumpkin color with expressions of deep concern. I opened the door to an onslaught of questions.
“Chloe! Where have you been? Why haven’t you returned any of our calls?”
“Is everything okay? We thought they might have married you off to some lord with terrible teeth.”
“Everything’s fine, guys,” I said with a laugh. “I’ve just been busy settling back in.”
I looked at them properly as I got out of the car. They’d both dressed to the nines for the first day of the new semester. Sam was going through a vintage phase and wearing a pair of fringed cowboy boots, the sort of thing I’d never be able to pull off in a million years.
“I like your…shirt?” Natalie told me in a tone that made it perfectly clear what she thought of my shirt. I glanced down at my outfit. It was true, I hadn’t put much effort into it. I was wearing a pair of jeans with a plain navy T-shirt and Converse.
I’d scraped my hair up in a ponytail, and the only makeup I’d bothered to apply was a dab of lip balm. Back at Grange Hall, I’d never felt the need to dress up. There was nobody to impress and no one’s approval to win. But my friends, with their slavish devotion to fashion, couldn’t keep the judgment out of their eyes.
“So did you meet Prince Harry?” Nat asked, to break the awkward silence.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I replied, and she looked genuinely crestfallen.
“Oh well, I’m sure London was awesome, right? What was the fashion like?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I replied. “I never left the village.”
“The village?” she repeated. “Sounds like Lord of the Rings or something.”
“Was there a guy?” Sam nudged me. “There had to be a guy.”
“What?” I scoffed. “Of course not.”
I’d never been a very good liar, and they saw right through me. “Who is he?” they squealed. “Tell us!”
“He’s no one,” I said emphatically.
“Aha!” Sam pointed a finger at me. “So he does exist.”
I let out a long sigh. It was easier to offer them something than to let this tedious conversation continue. Part of me wanted to blurt out that I’d met a mystery man on horseback with eyes like jewels, but I didn’t dare.
“His name is Joe,” I said, and just to watch them freak out, I added, “He’s related to the Duke of Canterbury.” They both stopped walking and stared at me, mouths hanging open. “It’s going to be a summer wedding and of course the Queen will be invited.”
“You idiot!” Sam punched my arm. “We totally believed you.”
We parted ways as we all headed to our first class of the semester. Being back at school was already starting to feel like a lot of effort. The corridors were buzzing with activity, and I kept my head down to avoid making eye contact. I’d grown accustomed to the peace and quiet of Grange Hall, and the flurry of animated conversation was overwhelming. I had Spanish first up, so I gathered my mountain of books and headed over early. The classroom felt foreign to me now. My mind kept flashing back to the misty, undulating hills of Wistings, the branches of the majestic willows sweeping the ground.
Memories and images keep spinning through my mind: Alex standing by the open window of my quaint little bedroom, the way it had felt when he’d become solid beneath my fingertips, the image of his figure shimmering and vanishing into the dark night.
“Hey.” Someone touched my shoulder. I looked up, heart thumping. But it was only Zac Green again in his low-slung jeans and polo shirt that matched the exact shade of his eyes. He leaned against the desk, looking calm and unruffled as always. His straight blond hair had grown over the break, and he tucked a loose strand behind his ears.
“How was your Christmas?” I didn’t answer for a moment and he took in my expression. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah…” I shook myself. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“You don’t feel like you belong here anymore, do you?” Zac asked with uncharacteristic insight. He seemed different than the way I remembered him, not at all like the brawny jock I’d always pegged him to be. He was supposed to be one of the guys you could enjoy looking at but not get much satisfaction talking to. That was what Sam had always said, but then again, she wasn’t exactly queen of intelligent conversation herself.
“I just…” I was taken by surprise at first, but then I figured there was no reason not to be honest. “I’m not really sure how I feel.”
“One day at a time,” Zac told me. “And every day it gets a little easier.”
“When did you get so wise?”
“My little sister died when I was in ninth grade,” he said.
My head shot up. Zac had come to Sycamore High in tenth grade, and I’d never spent enough time with him to know details about his past. I wondered how many people knew.
“I’m so sorry,” I stammered. “I wish I’d known.”
He waved a hand. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad, Chloe. I’m just saying if you ever need someone to talk to—” he gave an unassuming shrug of his broad shoulders “—I’m around.”
With a gentle punch of camaraderie on the shoulder, he took a seat at the back of the room. Needless to say, I couldn’t concentrate throughout the entire lesson. Luckily all the teachers had been briefed about my “situation” and knew better than to call on me for answers. Miss Lombardo barely even glanced in my direction, except to offer a brief, sympathetic smile that came across as completely patronizing despite her no-doubt good intentions.
I barely even registered the conjunctive verbs she’d written on the board. Isobel’s haunting lullaby was playing in my head, mixed with the screams from the Winter Ball, the sound of Joe’s heart monitor in the hospital and the cries of a long-dead baby. One corner of my mind was also trying to conjure the face of Zac’s sister, but her features kept chang
ing until she was a bizarre mix of Isobel and my mother and a stranger I didn’t recognize.
Through the glass panel of the door, I caught a flash of a figure striding by in a dark coat, his tangle of golden hair falling over his eyes. But his posture was all wrong for a California teenager: too straight, too formal and way too familiar. But of course, when I blinked, he was gone. I had a feeling that was going to happen to me a lot over the next few months. I wasn’t over Alex…not by a long shot, and even though he wasn’t technically haunting me anymore, I knew I would be haunted by his memory for the rest of my life. I let out a shaky breath and bent determinedly over my notebook. The only way through this was to keep my head down and soldier on. What other choice did I have?
At lunch I met Sam and Natalie at my locker. They noticed my glum face immediately.
“You look miserable,” Nat said. “Are you okay?”
I was tired of that question. The answer was a big fat no, a thousand times no. Nothing was okay. I wanted my ghost back. But how could I tell anyone that without seeming like a total freak? I’d sent him away, and now I would never see him again. It was my own fault and my own private torture to live with.
Even though my cheeks were stiff from trying to keep it together, I forced a smile that felt like it might collapse at any moment.
“I’m fine,” I said, doing my utmost to sound casual.
“Good,” said Sam as we pushed through the throng of students into the cafeteria. “Because we have news.”
“Yeah?” I was only half listening, wondering how I could escape to the bathroom and cry. I just wanted to sit in a cubical with my head between my knees and wait for this day to be over.
“There’s a new kid,” Sam went on. “We saw him arrive this morning and, oh my God, Chloe, he’s so gorgeous. Like something off The CW, don’t you think, Nat?”
“I would say more ABC Family,” she replied. “But yeah, he really had the whole tortured-artist thing going on.”
That had to be the least exciting news I could possibly think of. This was a big school and new students arrived all the time. The girls would probably stalk him for a few weeks until the novelty wore off or they found some other network-star look-alike.
“He looks so cute and confused,” Sam said dreamily. “We’re just gonna have to help him. Wonder where he’s from. What was his name again?”
“Alex something…” Natalie replied, dumping a load of ranch on her salad. “Ray? Rich?”
“Reade!” Sam said triumphantly. “Yeah, that’s it! Alexander Reade.”
My tray crashed to the cafeteria floor.
* * * * *
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, Momma, for being my best friend and the driving force behind everything I do. Nothing would be possible without you.
Thank you to the talented Natashya Wilson at Harlequin TEEN for being such a thorough editor and making me laugh through the pain with your comments!
Thank you, Pam van Hylckama Vlieg, for being a wonderful literary agent and a generally supercool human being.
Thank you, Mary Katherine Breland, for being my adopted sister and most enthusiastic fan.
Thank you, Clay Lafayette Mcleod III. You will always be on my wavelength. Don’t lose your rainbow.
Thank you, Boo Radley. You’re a little furry ball of happiness. I’m still convinced you’re a human trapped inside a dog’s body.
And finally, thank you, God, for your grace.
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ISBN-13: 9781460330357
Ghost House
Copyright © 2014 by Alexandra Grace
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, bu
siness establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Ghost House Page 26