Madly and Wolfhardt Read Free Page B

to glance at the woman standing on the front porch of the white mansion.
    Considering her voice, she was taller and more elegant than I would’ve expected.  In my head, I had the mental picture of a stooped, steely-haired, heavily wrinkled old woman in tattered clothes.  But this woman looked nothing like that.  Her short, dark brown hair was perfectly coiffed and her back was ram-rod straight.  She was clothed in black slacks and a deep red blouse, and I could see her matching lipstick from all the way across the yard.
    When we re-entered the woods and were well out of earshot, Jackson stopped and turned back toward the house.
    “Do you think that was Kellina’s grandmother?” I asked.
    “Probably,” he said, still holding my hand.
    When he turned back to me, we simply stood looking at one another for what seemed like an eternity before he slowly dropped my hand and said, “We’d better head back.”
    I nodded, feeling inordinately disappointed that our outing was over, to say nothing about how I felt about the end of our kiss.
    Jackson and I walked all the way back to the dorm in silence, though this silence was filled with a thousand different things.  Or at least I felt like it was.  Gone was the anger from earlier, replaced by a quiet introspection, a shared awe over what had just happened.
    I desperately hoped that Jackson had felt something real, too.  It seemed as though he had, but with Jackson, there was no way to be sure.
    When I opened the door to my room, we looked at each other and I smiled.  After only a tiny hesitation, one side of Jackson’s mouth twitched up into the ghost of a smile before he disappeared through his own door, closing it quietly behind him.
    With a sigh, I did the same, only on my side, I was greeted by one aggravated Jersey.
    “Where have you been?” she demanded, her hands on her hips and a deep frown creasing her brow. 
    “I was with Jackson, checking out the woods near Kellina’s house.  Why?”
    “With Jackson?” she asked, straightening, clearly confused.
    “Yeah.  Why?”
    “What were you doing with him?”
    “I told you.  We were check—”
    “I heard you the first time, but why were you with Jackson?”
    “Because he’s the Sentinel assigned to me, that’s why.  What’s the big deal?  Geez!”
    Jersey continued to stare at me, her frown making me uncomfortable.
    “Madly, I think—”
    Jersey stopped herself, as if she’d suddenly changed her mind about what she was going to say.
    I watched her impatiently.
    “You think what?” I prompted.
    Jersey shook her head.  “Nothing.”
    I could tell by her body language that it wasn’t nothing, but I wasn’t in the mood to press, so I let it go, turning instead toward my closet.
    After a couple of minutes of strained silence, Jersey plopped down on my bed.
    “So, what did you find?”
    “Huh?”
    “In the woods.”
    “Oh.  Nothing really.  Kellina’s got a really nice house, but her grandmother sounds mean.”
    “Hmm,” she muttered distractedly.  “We still on for the beach tonight?”
    “Yeah.  Why?”
    “Well, I thought maybe we could turn it into a little more of a party, so I invited a few people from school.”
    “Jersey!”
    “I thought it would look more…authentic,” she smiled, proud of herself.
    “But I told Kellina it would just be us.”
    “Settle down, Madly.  I only invited a few.  We need to get to know these people, right?  I mean, now more than ever.”
    She had a point.  There was no arguing that.  It still just irritated me that she’d taken such a liberty without asking me.  Of course, that was pretty typical of Jersey.  She was a  worry-about-the-consequences-latertype of person if I’d ever seen one.
    “I know you’re right.  I just…” I trailed off, letting the words die on a sigh.
    “Besides, it’s not like it’s turning into a rave or anything.”
    A couple hours later, I’m pretty sure Jersey reconsidered that statement.  We