* * * * *
The day started out typically enough. Abby scurried to her locker, pretending not to mind being alone. She sat quietly through English and bio. In P.E. she was the last one picked for volleyball. If a guy was choosing, she’d get called on first. She had great instincts and almost always got the ball. But the girls were a different species altogether. Their animosity toward her never thawed.
At lunch period, she decided not to eat. Lauren Liney’s face still stung the backs of her eyes, and not the happy one either, but the one she’d seen that night in the water. Abby didn’t have an appetite. Besides, she told herself carefully, do you really need to face all those stares?
Again she wished hungrily for Gretchen. But Gretchen had a new best friend— some sophomore named Sarah Gleason. Abby didn’t know Sarah that well. She’d moved to Chatham when Abby was thirteen, right around the time she’d started to change. But the girl had certainly figured out what Abby’s social status was. Not that it mattered anyway. Abby’s friendship with Gretchen had faded a few months before, but it’d hurt to see her place taken like that. Still, she liked to watch the two girls from afar, usually in the cafeteria, whispering the secrets that belong to best friends. Sometimes, she saw them in the library during study. Most kids were stuck in study hall, but since they were good girls, they almost always got out. Early on, when the change was still fresh, she’d actually decided to approach them. After all, it wasn’t, she’d reasoned, like she and Gretchen had gotten in some terrible fight. It was just that her best friend since first grade had suddenly decided to stop speaking to her.
The whole thing had been completely humiliating. Gretchen and Sarah had been in the library studying when she’d walked up to their table, her pulse pounding in her ears. “Hi Gretch,” she’d said, but Gretchen hadn’t even looked up. She’d just kept going over her math homework while pretending that Abby wasn’t even there.
Abby’d felt like a ghost shrieking through the mist, with no one caring whether they heard her or not. She’d stood for a beat, the blood rushing to her face, then took the hint and walked away. That was the first and last time she’d tried talking to Gretchen. After that she knew she was on her own.
Just get over it, thought Abby. It’s been almost three years. She bit down on her lower lip, and a jolt of pain shot into her chin. “Right,” she whispered, blinking back tears. Then she stared hard at the tops of her sneakers and walked quietly down the hall.
The library was deserted when Abby got there. Even the librarians were eating now, crowded inside their tiny office, no doubt gossiping. Abby sat down at a computer terminal so she would a least look like she was working, and tried to make her mind go blank. Come on, she thought. Let it go. There isn’t anything you could have done. But she couldn’t wipe Lauren Liney’s face from her mind.
Might as well check my email, she thought. It’s a whole lot safer than checking the news. She didn’t want to stumble across the story— missing teenager, all that stuff. After checking her Yahoo account, there was nothing there, she decided to look at her school email. Chatham High automatically gave every student an account. You were supposed to check it for announcements, which Abby never did. And some of the teachers used it for class, though none of Abby’s. But she needed something to do, so she logged on.
Abby’s account was almost completely full; it said it was running at ninety-eight percent. She scanned her eyes down her inbox, searching for something interesting to read. There’d been a pep rally two Wednesday’s ago. She saw several reminders about the winter formal, not that she was planning on going. There was an announcement for a bake sale that was over two months old. But then she saw it, right at the top. She had no idea how she’d missed it before. Somehow her eyes had glazed right by. But there it was, all in caps. Though to be fair, a lot of her emails were. What it said was: ABBY I SAW. THIS IS FOR REAL.
Abby clicked on the message, but she couldn’t read. The words swam by like a thousand fish, blurry in their push through the sea. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, ignoring the heat seeping into her face, the hammering beat of her own heart. Then she opened them and began to read.
I saw you last weekend on the beach. Meet me at Emmett’s after school. Be there.
—B.B.
B.B. thought Abby, panic shooting through her veins. Who’s B.B.? Who sent this to me? Quickly, she scanned the e-mail’s sender address. [email protected]. B. Baker, the name sounded familiar. Abby wracked her brain for any B. Baker’s she knew. Which class, she wondered. Is this person in any of them? Wait, wasn’t there a Baker in eighth period math? Mr. Hinley, who taught trig, always called roll with last names first. It was Brian Baker. Abby was sure. He was the quiet kid who always sat in the back. The one with the shock of jet black hair. There was a story there, she remembered now. He’d moved up to Chatham a few years ago when his step-dad had become the new chief of police. It had all happened around the time she’d made the change. (That’s probably why she didn’t know much about him. She’d been too busy focusing on herself to care.) A few weeks ago, she’d asked him for a pencil. She remembered the way his eyes seared her skin. Just like all the other boys.
Abby closed her eyes and thought back to that morning on the beach— jamming her clothes on, scanning the sand. No one had been there, she was almost sure. Almost…oh my God. Matilda’s face flashed through her mind. Her mother’s worst fears were coming true.
Black Waters (Book 1 in the Songstress Trilogy) Page 6