Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

“I think you dropped this.”

The girl from gym class, Claire, looked up at me through her huge glasses. Then she looked down at the pink sweater I offered her as if she’d never seen it before in her life, despite the fact that it had slipped from the strap of her backpack where she’d stashed it.

“No, seriously,” I said, trying not to be sarcastic. “No need to thank me.”

She glanced around at the other students that passed us by, then she stuck one hand out, snatching the sweater so quickly I barely had time to let go. “Thanks,” she whispered almost too low for me to hear.

“You shouldn’t let girls like Elizabeth tell you what to do,” I said.

She didn’t answer as she hugged the sweater to her chest, her eyes still on the floor. I shook my head as she scurried away. I didn’t understand why Claire would let other people control her like that.

My shoulder slammed suddenly into the concrete wall, sending my books flying across the floor as streams of pain radiated down my arm.

“Freak,” the tall guy who had knocked me into the wall muttered. He shot me a disgusted look before continuing down the hall.

No one stopped to see if I was okay or offered to pick up my books. Most of them looked away when I glanced around the hall. I gasped at the pain in my shoulder, rubbing it gently as I straightened back up.

The guy did not look familiar at all. Why he would have a problem with me was a mystery.

But then, a lot of things going on around here were a mystery.

I hurried through the lunch line as quickly as I could and found an empty table in a corner of the cafeteria. The room hummed with activity from other students eating and laughing and talking, but I wanted to be invisible for a little while.

It didn’t take long for me to be discovered.

“There you are. Hiding out?” Dylan asked.

“Um,” I said, feeling a little embarrassed. Dylan always looked so put together and confident, how could he understand my need to not exist for a little while? “Not really,” I lied. “This table has the best view.” I gestured toward the plate glass windows along the front of the cafeteria that looked out at the tree-lined street and houses across from the school.

Dylan sat down and dug into the food loaded on his tray, eating as if he hadn’t had anything in days.

“Sorry,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of food when he noticed me watching. “I’m starving today.”

“No problem,” I said and scooped up some mashed potatoes on my fork.

Some people in life couldn’t tell when another person wanted to be left alone. Dylan seemed to be one of them. “How do you like school so far?” he asked me.

“Fine. It’s school, I guess.”

“I’ll bet you miss your friends back home.”

I stirred my fork through my potatoes. Mom’s cancer had taken away my time spent hanging out and going to the movies, and eventually, at the end, I had no contact with anyone other than her doctors and nurses. There weren’t exactly any friends left to miss.

“Sorry,” Dylan said in a quieter voice. “I’m sure friends are the least of the people you miss.”

The truth was, I did miss my friends. I missed being just another kid, with no worries outside of what to wear on date night or what great movies were coming out next. I had drowned when my entire world became engulfed in Mom’s cancer and I hadn’t even begun to kick my way back to the surface.