Kaleidoscope (Faylinn Series) Read Free Page B

smiled and waved and he didn’t look back. If that didn’t feel like complete desertion after six years of friendship I don’t know what did.
    The second half of my summer was spent with Lia or my parents. No hot dates or summer romances. No exciting adventures or escapades to relay to him. We didn’t even go on a vacation. I should’ve just lied, told him something. But what was the point?
    I shrugged, not at all unaware of the warmth of his palm on my thigh. The simple touch had my nerves darting around my body like a pinball machine. “Nothing really.”
    His hand squeezed my leg lightly. “Well that’s lame. No hot dates or thrilling adventures to relay?”
    He knew just how to rub it in. “Nope.”
    Cameron took his hand back and crossed his arms. “I just don’t get that, Cal,” he said, perplexed. “You need to relax and stop being so intimidating to all the guys. They want you, if you’ll just give ‘em the time of day.”
    “Thanks for the words of wisdom. I’ll try harder to change
myself
to be more appealing to
them
.”
    “You know that’s not what I meant,” he said. “You just turn the cold shoulder every time any guy wants to talk to you.”
    I chuckled.
I did not
. “Why do you care so much about my dating life, Cam?”
Did I?
    “I don’t,” he said, looking away indifferently out the passenger’s side. “It’s just now that I have Isla, I see what I was missing out on by not being serious about any girl before. I can’t believe I never saw her before. The blind man can finally see.”
    Cut me while I’m down, will ya? Maybe spit on me while I’m down there and rub a little salt in the wounds to top it off.
    “The only guy worthy of my time will be the one who’s willing to work for it. I refuse to give this away for free.” I gestured to myself to get a chuckle out of him and it worked.
    “All right. I see. You’re worth more than that. I know. You deserve a really good guy.”
    If only you could see that guy is you.
    I pulled up to his house and let him hop out.
    “Thanks for the ride, Callie. See you tomorrow.”
    I nodded and waved.
    It used to be—
I’ll call you later;
or—
let’s hang out tonight.
I couldn’t even remember the last time Cameron called me just to chat. Gosh, I missed him.

Chapter Two
    P ulsating through my body like another heartbeat, the subtle thumping broke my concentration on Macbeth. The sensation beckoned me to my bedroom window overlooking our trees.
    The internal thumping started getting a little stronger a few weeks ago. The need; the yearning; the hunger to be outside—it had been controllable in the past. Simply being outside used to fulfill the urge. Before, there were even times when I could brush it off and go back to whatever task I was doing. Now, I found that it grew stronger every day, pulling me to the trees. It made me feel crazy.
    I cracked the window in my bedroom open and skimmed the trees. The sun had barely set behind the grove, generating a grayish blue haze streaming through the branches. I’d never been apprehensive about the vast pasture of greenery before, but as my eyes studied the unknown beyond, I began to question what was out there. I wasn’t sure if I was being lured by simple curiosity or something deeper. The only thing keeping me in the security of my bedroom was the coherent side of my brain that screamed danger at the thought of entering a darkening forest alone. But it was so tempting.
    My ears perked up at a faint tangle of noises. I lifted the window up a little more, but couldn’t quite make out what it was. It didn’t sound like birds or squirrels. There were two separate sounds. One was low, baritone almost, while the other was a slight bit higher, but not feminine sounding. I didn’t think it was humans, but the sounds were too soft to know for sure. Whatever it was sounded like. . .arguing? It was probably the next-door neighbors. Then there was a
crack
and then a
thud
. A tree branch