The Color Of Grace (29 page)

“Are you still a virgin?” Mom rushed out the question,
lumping the words together as if it had taken all her nerve to ask them.

My mouth fell open. “What?”

She shrugged. “You told me I should just ask the next time I
wondered.”

It took me a couple tries to close my mouth again. And once
I did, I barely re-opened it to hiss, “Yes, I’m still a virgin.”

Shoulders visibly relaxing, Mom nodded. “Okay. So then,
what's going on with you? I know it’s something besides the trouble between us.
I blame myself for letting us get so far out of touch with each other. I
should’ve made you talk a week ago. But, Grace...” She sighed and rubbed at her
suddenly tired looking face. “I’m your mother, and I still love you. If something
is wrong, I want you to tell me about it. No matter what.”

My face crumpled. Why did she have to reach out toward me
and try to open up while he was sitting right there? The injustice of it made
me mad, and frustrated, and heartbroken. I wanted to scream, stamp my feet,
cry.

Dropping her hand, she gazed at me from weary eyes. “You
know what, if you don’t want to talk, fine. Just go. Get out of my sight.”

I stared a moment longer, hoping I hadn’t lost my one chance
to tell her everything. Feeling Barry’s stare, I whirled away and hurried to my
room like the coward I was.

I didn’t leave again until he knocked on my door.

“Grace,” he called softly. “Your mom says you need to come
out for lunch.”

Glancing at the clock, I blinked, surprised so much time had
already passed.

“I don’t think she’s going to let you get out of eating this
time,” he coaxed.

Grinding my teeth, I pushed off the bed, straightened my
clothing and stiffening my back. I waited a moment, hoping he’d moved on after
delivering the message Mom had obviously sent him to give.

But when I opened up, there he stood.

It took everything inside me not the slam the door in his
face.

“Grace,” he said softly.

The muscles in my fingers cramped from clutching the side of
the door so hard.

“I just want to apologize for last night.” He moved in
closer, leaning his shoulder against the doorjamb, leaving only a tiny space
for me to slide past him to get into the hall.

I remained stiffly in the doorway, watching him from distrusting
eyes.

Waving his hand, he sighed. “I’d had a little too much to
drink and I was…” He sighed again. “I said a lot of stuff that I didn’t…I never
meant to scare you.”

Eyes narrowing, I studied him as I tried to dissect the
meaning of his words. Maybe he hadn’t meant to scare me, but had he still meant
what he’d said?

I kind of thought so. Ergo, I didn’t relax, didn’t take my
leery gaze off him, didn’t even breathe. Holding my balled hand protectively
over my chest, I nodded once, letting him think whatever he wanted from that
response.

His face melted in sympathy. “Where did you go last night?”
he asked quietly, glancing back, probably to make sure Mom wasn’t around.

I just shook my head and said, “Nowhere.”

Barry scowled. “Grace, I have a key to your room. When I
went inside, you were gone.”

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?”

“With flying colors.” She rolled her eyes and added, “Pun
not intended.”

As we grinned at each other, a ball of dread that had been
winding and growing inside me settled for the first time since the Friday
before. Feeling utterly impulsive, I threw my arms around Ms. Holderread and
hugged her hard. “Thank you,” I said, expressing my gratitude for so much more
than a stupid A.

After she initially tightened, she relaxed enough to pat my
back. “No problem.”

Realizing I was hugging a teacher, I yanked back, turning
myself into a redhead. “I’m sorry,” I gushed. “That was totally inappropriate.
I should—”

Laughing, she waved me off. “Don’t worry about it, kid. God
knows I’ve felt like hugging a teacher or two in my time.” With a wink, she
added, “And honestly, you kind of just made my day, making me think maybe I
actually reached a student and truly helped her.”

“You did,” I assured. “You really,
really did.” Then I booked it out of there before I could make an even bigger
fool out of myself and start crying, or worse, spilling all the secrets that
had been brewing inside me over the past few days.

I was at my locker when I heard someone come up behind me. I
thought it’d be Ryder, once again asking if I was okay, but when I glanced over
my shoulder to find Todd behind me, I gasped and whirled to face him as if I
were protecting my open locker from a burglar.

“Hey,” he said softly and smiled.

I swallowed. “Hi.”

He put his hands in his pockets and looked a bit uncomfortable.
“I think we need to talk.”

Rolling my eyes, I snorted. Was the boy seriously going to
break up with me? We hadn’t even been dating. Not in my book anyway.
“Actually,” I said before he could start, “I tried to talk to you…Friday
night.”

He reared back, crinkling his brow. “You did?”

With a nod, I folded my arms over my chest. “I even went to
Ryder’s house so I could
talk
 
to you. But you know what? You weren’t there
like you told me you’d be. So, Ryder drove me to your house, so that I could
talk
 
to you. And do you know what
we
saw?”

Todd’s face drained of color; he immediately lifted his
hands. “Grace, I can explain.”

“I don’t think I’m the one you have to worry about explaining
anything to.”

From the corner of my eye, I caught someone moving in on us
fast. I glanced over Todd’s shoulder and sucked in a breath when I saw Ryder,
his face hard as stone and his glare just as determined.

Catching my bulging-eyed expression, Todd whirled around. He
jolted a step back, away from the advancing Ryder, almost running into me.
Keeping his hands lifted in surrender, he said, “Ryder, man. Look—”

“You’re dead,” is all Ryder replied and grabbed a hold of
Todd’s shirt to haul his best friend away from me and shove him into the middle
of the hall. Todd was still trying to talk himself out his predicament.

“I didn’t know she was going to come over. I swear, she
started it—”

Ryder didn’t bother to listen. Bunching five fingers into a
fist, he wound his arm back and punched his friend in the face. Todd’s head
snapped back and Ryder hit him again.

Pressing my hand to my chest, I let out a squeak of alarm
and backed into the lockers behind me just as Todd let out a roar and lowered
his head to ram his shoulder into Ryder’s gut, pushing him up against the wall
of lockers opposite me.

The breath momentarily knocked out of him, Ryder doubled
over, clutching his middle, giving Todd the chance to jack him squarely in the
cheekbone. With his own fuming bellow, Ryder launched himself off the wall and
I swear he flew—in the air—fists flailing at Todd.

I’d never been so close to a physical brawl before. It
wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t glamorous. Knowing both parties as I did, it was
downright frightening. What if one of them got seriously hurt? Or killed?

Red faces, clenched teeth, Ryder and Todd looked intent on
slaughtering each other. Fluids flew, curses rippled the air, and the
sounds…ugh. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound of knuckles against flesh.

Just about the time a decent-sized crowd had gathered to
watch, two male teachers and one female appeared, wading into the fray,
grabbing arms and legs to tear the two boys apart. A lot of shouting followed,
Todd and Ryder yelling back and forth, teachers commanding them to stop. It was
more than I could digest. I stood plastered to my locker, a stack of books
pressed firmly to my chest, holding my breath big time.

When the teachers hauled the bloody boys away, I finally
exhaled, my shoulders slumping and my fingers flexing from the cramp I’d given
them from clutching my textbooks. It was then I caught sight of Kiera on the
other side of the crowd, mutely watching everything, her face pale as she
stared after the retreating fighters. When she caught my glare, she turned
away, looking guilty.

If I’d been nervy enough, I would’ve
approached her. I would’ve made a huge spectacle in front of everyone, making
sure all the gawkers knew exactly why Ryder Yates had attacked his best friend
in the middle of the hall. I didn’t even feel sorry for her as she clutched her
stomach and hurried toward the bathrooms.

Humph. Served the wicked witch right.

An hour later, I began to think maybe I should’ve grown some
courage and confronted Kiera after all. She was probably the one who had
started the rumors that followed.

Didn’t take me long to figure out what everyone was
whispering as I stepped from first period and started down the hall toward my
locker.

That’s her. That’s the girl.

She’s the one who made Yates and
Stangman fight.

Everyone knows Ryder had a big crush on
her. Even poor Kiera. It’s no wonder the Stang grew tired of him always staring
at her.