02 Seekers Read Free Page B

looked out at the sky.
    “Is that what you were doing these past couple of days? Seeing your friend?” I tried again.
    “Can we talk about it later?” he asked.
    “Define ‘later’,” I said.
    “Not now.”
    “I can handle ‘not now’,” I said slowly.
    “Me, too,” Daniel said.
    “But it’s not the end of it,” I tacked on.
    He smiled crookedly in response, knowing I wouldn’t give up.
    We sped to the lonely interstate out of King’s Cross talking about other things then, things that felt real on the surface, but were starting to unravel the further we got from home. Around us, over the blue mountains of my home, dark clouds started to form, a summer storm barreling
    towards us. I knew it would reach us soon.

Chapter 2
    The movie Daniel took me to see was gory, horrible, and absolutely hysterical. I wiped away tears, which had leaked over from laughing so hard, as we walked out of the theater. Daniel smiled at my laughter, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. I could tell he was trying hard to act natural for my benefit. I wasn’t fooled. Even as he smiled at me and my laughter, I sensed the tension in his body.
    Outside, rain poured down in great sheets of noise, the storm having released its furious power while we were inside. The sheets of water were so thick I couldn’t see two feet in front of me against the dark evening. The transition from the light we had walked into the theater in and the dark of the storm we had walked out to, made me feel as if we had went in during one life and had come out during another.
    I was willing to run to the car with Daniel, not minding the rain, but he stopped me. “I’ll bring the car around. No sense in both of us getting wet.” He kissed my neck and ran out into the storm before I could argue.
    I tucked my hands in my pockets, annoyed he was being so pushy, and leaned against the cement building to wait. I watched the rain fall and tried to make sense of his mood and the strange sinking sensation that mood left in my stomach. As I waited, the door to my left opened, and I heard two voices I could have lived without hearing for the rest of my summer – or even the rest of my life. Alex hung out with them sometimes, but I made a point not to. Seeing them at school was bad enough.
    “It’s not funny, Mark!” Jennifer said.
    “Is so! Didn’t you see her fall?!” Mark chortled happily, stupidly.
    An image of a larger girl, an underclassman from our school, flashed into my mind as he
    replayed it in his rather small brain. In the memory she tripped over an uneven bit in the carpet and face-planted right in front of Mark. He thought it better than the action movie they had just left. At least, Jennifer was showing some humanity. I sunk back into the wall hoping they
    wouldn’t notice me, afraid to get angry and do something I regretted. I should have known better.
    Jennifer looked back at the girl – from her thoughts I knew the girl was her cousin – and caught sight of me. She stopped and tugged on Mark’s hand to make him do the same. He hadn’t
    noticed me. He had been too busy trying to think of ways to get Jennifer to go get the car instead of him.
    “Clare?”
    Crap.
    “Hey, guys,” I said, my eyes raking the rain for Daniel’s car.
    Jennifer’s eyes were wide with surprise. “What are you doing?” … skulking in the shadows like that? It’s way creepy.
    Hiding from you. “Daniel’s getting the car. He didn’t want me to get wet, I guess.”
    “He’s here?” Mark asked cautiously, looking over his shoulder casually, but I sensed his
    trepidation.
    Daniel and Mark had argued over me once and didn’t talk anymore. Mark was bitter, thinking his friend had chosen a girl before friendship. What was it? Bros before hoes? It didn’t help Mark’s feelings that Mark was entirely aware that should they fight, Daniel would win hands down. It just made him feel bitter.
    “Yes, he is,” I said.
    More thought from the pair followed my