Switched Read Free Page B

A nearby wind chime tinkled lightly, and I was dreading winter would come and take this all away.
    I’d been lost in the moment, enjoying the perfection, but something snapped me out of it. It was hard to describe exactly what it was, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up. The air suddenly felt chillier, and I knew somebody was watching us.
     I looked around, trying to see who it was, and this weird fear ran over me. We had a privacy fence on the back of the yard, and a thick row of hedges blocking our house on either side. I scanned both of them, searching for any signs of crouching figures or spying eyes. I didn’t see anything, but the feeling didn’t go away.
    “If you’re gonna be out here, you should at least wear shoes,” Matt said, pulling me from my thoughts. He stood up, stretching his back, and looked at me. “Wendy?”
    “I’m fine,” I answered absently.
    I thought I saw movement around the side of the house, so I went over there. Matt called my name, but I ignored him. When I rounded the house, I stopped short. Finn Holmes stood on the sidewalk, but oddly enough, he wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at something down the street, something out of my sight.
    As strange as it sounds, as soon I saw him, the anxiety I’d felt started to subside. My first thought should’ve been that it was him, since he was the one that always stared at me in such a creepy fashion, but it wasn’t.
    Whatever I’d felt in the backyard, that wasn’t him. When he stared, he made me self-conscious. But this... this made my skin crawl.
    After a second, Finn turned to look back at me. His dark eyes rested on me a moment, his face expressionless as always. Then, without saying a word, he turned and walked off in the direction he’d been staring.
    “Wendy, what’s going on?” Matt asked, coming up behind me.
    “I thought I saw something,” I shook my head.
    “Yeah?” He looked at me hard, concern etched in his eyes. “Are you okay?”
    “Yeah. I’m fine,” I forced a smile at him and turned to the backyard. “Come on. We’ve got a lot of work to do if I’m gonna make it to that dance.”
    “You’re still on that kick?” Matt grimaced.
    Telling Maggie about the dance may have been the worst idea I’ve ever had, and my life is made up almost entirely of bad ideas. I hadn’t wanted to go, but as soon as she’d heard about it, she decided it would be the most fantastic thing ever. I’d never gone to a dance before, and she was so excited about it, I let her have this small victory.
    With the dance at seven, she figured she had enough time to finish the coat of paint in the bathroom. Matt started to voice his complaints, but Maggie shut him down. To keep him from getting in her way, she commanded him to finish the yard work. He complied only because he knew that there was no stopping Maggie anymore.
    Despite Matt’s attempts to slow us down, we finished the garden in record time, and I went inside to get ready. Maggie sat on the bed and watched me as I rummaged through my closet, offering suggestions and comments on everything. This included an endless stream of questions on Finn, and Matt would grunt or scoff every now and then at my answers, so I knew he was listening nearby.
    Once I had decided on a simple blue dress that Maggie insisted looked amazing on me, I let her do my hair. My hair refused to listen to anything I tried to do it, and while it wasn’t exactly obedient for Maggie, she outwitted it. She left some of it down, so the curls would frame my face, and pulled the rest of it back.
    When Matt saw me, he looked really pissed off and a little awed, so I knew that I must look pretty awesome.
    Maggie gave me a ride to the dance, because we both weren’t convinced that Matt would let me out of the car. He kept insisting on a nine o’clock curfew, even though the dance went until ten, even as Maggie and I walked out the door. I thought I’d be back well before that, but Maggie told me