Earthbound. Aprilynne Pike

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СКАЧАТЬ the raised edge. The doctors told me that it will gradually get flatter and less noticeable, but it’ll always be there. It’s about eight inches long and stretches back diagonally from just above my hairline on the right side of my head. Luckily, once my hair got to be about an inch long, it covered the scar almost completely. The four inches I have now is dark enough that no one can see my scar at all unless I run my fingers through my hair.

      I don’t do that in public; I’m very careful.

      Still, maybe a visit to the salon would help.

      “How was PT?” Reese asks, making me jump. At least she waited to swing by my room until after I hid all evidence of my latest injury.

      “As good as torture ever is,” I mutter, shoving my makeup bag aside. My leg is still aching.

      “And how about your session with Dr. Stanley yesterday?” she continues. Reese and Jay apparently didn’t get the memo about the Elizabeth thing; they always call her Dr. Stanley.

      “Fine,” I say, peeling off my sweater; all this adrenaline is making me hot. The air from the open window cools my prickly skin.

      “So things are going well?” she asks. “Progress?”

      I look up at her, suspicious; this is more than she usually delves. Or maybe I just haven’t noticed, but today everything makes me feel paranoid.

      “I’m only asking,” Reese says quickly, “because I need to visit a client out of town in the next week or so. I wondered how you would feel about me being gone for a couple days.”

      “Oh, that would be totally fine,” I say, too fast. “Is Jay going with you?”

      “Don’t I wish. He’s got a new project. There’s no way they’d let him take a week off now.” She’s leaning against my door frame, her voice distant—wistful. If she weren’t answering a direct question, I would wonder if she was talking to me or herself.

      Then, abruptly, she straightens, and looks at me and smiles. Big.

      I like Reese; I really do. But she tries so hard. Too hard, I guess. Jay takes everything more naturally, and it’s easy to sit and joke when it’s just him and me. Or even all three of us. When I’m alone with Reese, it takes effort.

      “Dinner’ll be ready in about ten minutes,” she says cheerily. “I made lasagna.”

      I grin and she interprets it as excitement for the lasagna—which is understandable. It’s great lasagna! But really I’m laughing at her use of the word made. Because in my opinion, the guy at the deli made the lasagna. All Reese can take credit for is slipping it into the oven and setting the timer.

      That might be baking, but it’s definitely not making. When Mom made lasagna, she’d spend hours rolling fresh noodles and crushing tomatoes and chopping oregano. Nothing came from a pouch or a can or a deli; for Mom, food was art. Reese’s lasagna is different—just like everything else in my new life. So different that it doesn’t seem entirely real sometimes. There are days when my life here feels like I’m at an exotic summer camp and after a few more candlelit meals and nights under my silky down comforter, I’ll go home and my parents will be waiting back in middle-class Michigan.

      Other days it feels so different that the fact that my old life is gone seems all the more real.

      And depressing.

      Luckily, most days are somewhere in the middle.

      “My favorite,” I blurt at last.

      Reese plays with the edge of her untucked blouse as her mind churns almost visibly. She’s trying to think of something else to say.

      I avoid the tension by looking out the window at the frothy Piscataqua River and almost choke in surprise, my heartbeat immediately back up to full speed. “You know what, Reese? I’m kinda hot. I’m going to go outside for a little bit.”

      I hope I sounded sufficiently casual as I squeeze past her and make it halfway down the stairs before she can respond, my leg throbbing as I nearly run.

      “Dinner in ten,” she yells after me. “You need to eat!”

      But I barely hear her.

      I burst out the back door, my eyes scanning, searching. Please don’t let me be too late, I mentally beg.

      But I’m not.

      He’s still there. Crouched on the riverbank.

      CHAPTER SEVEN

      He doesn’t seem to take any notice of me as I walk up, blinking furiously and trying to make sure I actually see him. That he’s real.

      But as usual, there’s no flickering, no glowing. Not like the woman by the realty office or the triangle at the house. Just … him. Real and solid. I’m both relieved by and afraid of that.

      The jacket and hat are gone, but he hasn’t exactly replaced them with jeans and a polo. He’s wearing a linen shirt tucked loosely into brown canvas breeches and his feet are bare, toes half buried in the rocky sand. I glance around at the ground next to him and don’t see any shoes. But then, if he was crazy enough to come to my house uninvited and unannounced two days in a row, maybe he walks around barefoot, too.

      In March.

      As I watch, the air frozen in my lungs—is my heart even beating?—he lifts a hand and tucks a strand of that silken hair behind his ear. Then he bends forward, the linen straining across his shoulders, and picks up a small rock. With a leisurely motion he swings his arm around and releases the stone to go skipping over the face of the river.

      The stillness is gone.

      A hot fountain of anger and need and want and fury bubbles up in my stomach and as I cover the distance between us, I’m not sure which are stronger—the feelings holding me back or the ones propelling me forward.

      Then I’m there. Beside him.

      He doesn’t look up. Doesn’t give any indication that he knows I’m standing here at all.

      It just makes me angrier.

      “I saw you,” I say, just loud enough for him to hear—I don’t want to draw anyone’s attention, especially Reese’s. “Yesterday. Today, I mean. Two in the morning.”

      I wait for him to explain, to defend himself. To lie even. But he says nothing.

      “And then on Park Street too. I don’t like that you’re following me and I want you to stop.” My teeth nearly clamp down on the lie I didn’t know was a lie until it came out of my mouth.

      But at least I got it out. Benson would be proud.

      Still the guy says nothing. Just reaches for another stone and lets it fly, like the first one.

      “I’m serious,” I say.

       I’m not.

      “I СКАЧАТЬ