The Color Of Grace (11 page)

Blinking against the sudden rush of tears, I could only
watch him retreat, his form turning blurry in my moist vision.

Confused, devastated, and forlorn, I
closed off my phone and turned in the opposite direction only to catch sight of
the desolate glove in the snow. It looked too miserable and cold to be left by
itself.

After bending to snap up the poor, lonely thing and stuff it
into my pocket, I carefully tread the rest of the way to Barry’s house, unable
to stop thinking about the cruel words Ryder Yates had slung at me.

Chapter 9

I feel like I should be beige. Neutral
and as dull as oatmeal. No flavor, no exciting color. Just one big nonentity.
Ryder was right. I don’t belong, especially to anything as exciting as color.
I’m just a deep bottomless pit of nothing.

* * * *

“So, how was your first day?”

I paused inside Barry’s foyer as the question traveled
across the living room. I lifted my face to find him and my mom camped out on
the couch, their legs intertwined and sock-covered toes playing footsie on the
coffee table.

A week ago, I would’ve dropped my bag, dashed over there and
crawled up next to Mom, burying my face in her shoulder, and sobbed out the
entire, sordid day. A part of me ached with regret because I didn’t feel like I
could do that today. Not only did I still feel bitter toward her, but she
looked all comfortable and happy with her new husband. No room for third-wheel
Grace.

So I speared her a glare and hissed, “Like you care,” as I
passed through the room and rushed to my lair.

“Hey,” she called after me, her voice surprised and indignant.
“Get back here, young lady.
Grace
!”

Barry must’ve contained her. I heard his low voice murmuring
something and then there was nothing else. I was free to escape. I had barely
closed the door, pressed my back to it and clamped my eyes shut when my bag
rang, or rather my phone inside my bag rang.

Who in the world could be calling
me
?

I dropped my bag off my shoulder and rummaged until I
discovered it was Bridget.

“Oh, thank God,” I moaned, answering immediately. I needed
to hear my best friend’s voice right then. My sanity depended on it.

“You will not believe the day I had,” I gushed instead of my
usual greeting.

“Tell us everything.”

I paused, a small frown marring my eyebrows. “Us?”

“Hi,” the voices of Schy and Adam chorused from Bridget’s
line.

Hearing all of them together deflated
my relief. I know it was selfish, but the idea of them being with each other,
without me, hurt. Reasonably, I understood it’d be silly for the nerd herd to
disband and float off in lonely, separate directions once I had to leave. But
irrationally, I felt betrayed. It was as if my absence hadn’t even left a
smudge. They were still as tight as ever.

“So did you see him?” at least two voices asked.

Slumping toward my bed, I sat on the edge of the mattress,
my enthusiasm to tell all deflating. “See who?” I closed my eyes even as I
answered. The innocent, whatever-are-you-talking-about tone in my voice was a
bit too obvious.

“Number forty-two,” Bridget nearly shouted, just as Schy did
shout, “Ryder Yates. Duh.”

“Oh.”
Him
. As of
five minutes ago, I did not want to talk about that guy. Or even think about
him. “Mmm hmm, I saw him. I, uh, talked to his friend who was sitting directly
in front of him during second hour. The friend introduced us.” For some reason,
I couldn’t tell them about the encounter I’d had with him after school. Still
stung too much.

“Holy Hosanna. You have a class with him?”

“Chemistry,” I answered then bit my lip as soon as the word
crossed my lips.

Schy had to be the one to catch the irony. “Grace and Ryder
have
chemistry
together.” She
snorted.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah. His girlfriend doesn’t have the
class with us, though.”

“This is going to make Adam’s song for you two so much—wait.
Did you just say girlfriend?”

I gave a decisive nod, though no one could see me. “She’s a
sophomore and is already, like, the most popular cheerleader to ever attend
Southeast. Oh, and the two of them are known as the most sexually active couple
in school.”

After dropping that little information bomb, I held my
breath, waiting for the fallout. Silence breezed through the connection.

Finally, Adam of all people was the one to speak. “They’re
what?”

“Well, dang,” Bridget muttered. “Guess that’s a dead end.”

“Grace,” Schy groaned, putting two syllables in my name.
“That’s so not right. He was supposed to be all single and…and perfect, just
waiting for you so you guys could run off into the sunset together and have a
romantic happily ever after.”

“Yeah, well… Sorry.”

“This
sucks
,”
Bridget exploded, her tone of voice telling me exactly what her facial
expression looked like at that moment.

A hot needle of loneliness pierced the center of my chest. I
didn’t want to sit on my bed alone and simply listen to them. I wanted to be
with them, relaxing on the floor with my knees bent and my face down as Schy
drew designs on the back of my neck and Adam fiddled on his guitar and Bridge
commandeered her computer, looking up odd facts.

“Want us to come over?” Schy offered.

“Yeah,” Bridget chipped in. “We can be there in twenty
minutes if Adam drives fast.”

“Grace,” my mother called, rapping on my door hard enough to
open it with her knock. Then she butted her big head into the wedge of space.
“Five minutes,” she said with a severe, dictating arch of her eyebrows. “Then
it’s time to get ready for supper. Your night to cook, remember?”

I turned my back to her. And kept talking. “Yeah. So that’s
all there is to say about that,” I told my friends.

“Was that your mom?” Bridget said. I guess she’d heard my
mother’s
declaration
.

“Yes.” I rolled my eyes.

“You two are still fighting, huh?”

I sniffed. “You could say that.”

“What is her problem lately?” Schy demanded to know. “I used
to be so jealous of the relationship you two had. My mom and I have never been
so close. But in the past few days…I don’t know. It’s just strange.”

It flattered me to know she’d been jealous. But it also depressed
me too. Mom and I
had
been close.
What was changing? Well, besides everything.

“What about the rest of your day?” Bridget broke in, unknowingly
pulling me off my track toward depression. “At least tell us you made a
friend.”

I bit my lip and told them about Laina.

“Yeah, she sounds okay,” they agreed.

I nodded before rushing out the words, “Then Ryder’s friend
Todd asked me to hang out with a bunch of them after their basketball game
tonight.”

I swear all three of my friends chorused, “Really?” in
unison.

Ugh, maybe I shouldn’t have told them about that. “But I’m
not going,” I pledged.

I’d had reservations to begin with, but after hearing about
Ryder and Kiera’s
status
, I really
didn’t feel like attending. Then Ryder had gone and solidified my decision with
his whole
you don’t belong
spiel. I
still didn’t want to think about that. Every time I even started, tears began
to work their way to my eyes.

“You should go,” Schy insisted.

“Yeah,” Bridget seconded.

“But they’re really not my kind of people,” I hedged and
winced. And Ryder Yates would be there.

“How do you know they’re not your kind of people if you
refuse to hang out with them?” Bridget asked.

I wasn’t sure how to explain it. I just knew. If any of
those three had been around this group for the thirty seconds I had, they’d
feel it too. Ryder Yates had been right. I
wouldn’t
 
fit in. They were too—what was the
word—fast, maybe. Yeah, they were too fast for me.

What if they wanted to drink alcohol? Or take drugs? I’d
probably expire on the spot. My type of people did not do that kind of thing.
This new group…well, I didn’t know, but I didn’t want to find out either.

“You have to make friends, Grace. You just have to.” Bridget
sounded desperate, as if her entire happiness relied on me fitting in at
Southeast.

My resistance failed. “Okay,” I muttered. “I’ll go.”

“Grace!” the muffled voice of my mother bellowed through the
house.

Instead of answering, I kept my back to the door and tried
to think up something to say to keep me on the phone with my friends longer.
“What color am I?” I asked.

There was a long pause before Adam said, “Um…Caucasian?”

“A very pale Caucasian,” Schy added. “In fact, you could use
a good tan.”

I rolled my eyes. “Not the color of my skin. What color is
my…my soul?”

Another long drawn out space of silence followed. Then
Bridget hesitantly asked, “Why do you ask?”

“I have to write a paper for literature class.”

“You’re thinking this hard over a school
paper
?” Adam blurted out, sounding
disgusted.

Schy groaned. “Good Lord, Gracie. I can’t believe this. You
moved to Southeast only to turn into
Bridget
?”

“Oh, honey,” Bridget cheered. “Welcome to the dark side.
Isn’t philosophizing everything addictive?”

I winced. Did I really sound like Bridget when she fell into
thinker-mode? “Okay, maybe I worded that wrong. I meant my personality. What
color of a person am I?”

“Grace, if you don’t get off that phone right now, I’m
taking it away from you for good.” My mother bulldozed her way into my room,
her eyes flashing with anger.

“You better go,” Bridget said.

“Yeah,” Schy echoed. “She sounds mad.”

“Bye,” Adam called just as their line disconnected.

“Bye,” I mumbled back, and tossed my phone onto the mattress
beside me. My stare frosted over as I met my mother’s gaze. “I’m off,” I
announced in a snide voice.

She folded her arms over her chest and glared back. “Good.
So go start supper.”

I huffed out a reluctant sigh and pushed to my feet, leaving
my phone on the bed before brushing past her on my way out of the room.

It wasn't as if I’d never made supper before. When it had
only been the two of us, Mom and I switched off every other night. Her marrying
Barry hadn’t stopped that except now he took his turn as well. He wasn’t much
of a chef and usually ordered some kind of delivery, but it was nice that I
only had to put up with kitchen duty once every three nights instead of every
other night.

I whipped up a quick batch of spaghetti. Wasn’t hard. Boil
noodles, brown some ground beef, open a can of spaghetti sauce, and mix the
three together. It came out better than anything Barry had ever cooked, though
I felt bad thinking that. He really did try.

Once I had the table set and added some garlic bread—which
was simply sandwich bread slices cut diagonally with butter and garlic powder
on top, cooked a few minutes in the toaster oven—I called Mom and Barry in to
eat.

They poured their own drinks—water for Barry, milk for
Mom—and we sat together in silence. As the meal began, the occasional tinkle of
silverware against a plate was the only sound filling the room. I glanced at
the newlyweds, wondering if they’d be more comfortable with me absent. Yet another
place I didn’t belong. I hadn’t thought about stuff like this when my mom had
told me she was getting married. But now that it was here, and the three of us
were actually living together, I couldn’t help but feel like the odd girl out.
The extra wheel. The party crasher.

They’d probably be more relaxed the rest of the night if I
went to the game. That’s what made up my mind to actually go more than
anything.

After taking a quick drink of iced tea, I cleared my throat.
“There’s a home game at Southeast tonight,” I hedged. “I’d like go if I could.”

Mom jerked her head up as if surprised I wanted to talk.
After picking her napkin off her lap to dab at her mouth, she said, “Oh? What
kind of game?”

I nearly rolled my eyes. What kind of game? Was she serious?
I almost sneered something sarcastic like, “Baseball, because all high schools
play baseball in the
winter
,” but I
managed to refrain myself and politely said, “Basketball.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Since when have you liked basketball?”

Since never. But how was that the point? So here came the
tricky part. “Actually, a group of people get together after the game and hang
out. They invited me to join them tonight.”