Vision of Secrets Read Free Page B

them. I didn’t know if it was true or not. While we knew each
other, she and I never spent any real time together.
    “Hey, Bristol,” she said as we stood by the
sink. “Ooh.” She looked over at me. “Those are pretty.” She looked
at my ears. “And new—I haven’t seen them on you before. New
boyfriend?”
    I shook my head. “My uncle gave them to
me.”
    She nodded and reached out to examine them. As
she did, her finger grazed my ear.
     
    My world shifted and I saw her
laughing with friends on the school steps as she watched some video
on her phone.
    “I never get tired of watching her
wait there,” Michelle said. “Then get that text telling her that he
didn’t want to meet her because she’s such a slut. It’s
priceless.”
    Someone came running up to them. A
short blonde girl I knew as Kara. “Oh my God, you have to get rid
of that now.”
    Michelle looked at her like she had
ten heads. “Why should I? It’s hilarious. Do you see the look on
Jen’s face when she got my text and—”
    “Get rid of it,” Kara repeated. “And
erase the texts. I heard the teachers are on the warpath about
it.”
    “Why?” Michelle said. “What do they
care?”
    “Jen’s dead,” Kara replied. “She
went home that night and hung herself. I’m telling you, get rid of
the evidence now.”
     
    Before Michelle could respond, I felt myself
pulled back to the here and now.
    “You ok?” Michelle asked. She was staring at
me.
    “Um, yeah,” I said. “Listen Michelle, I heard
something to other day that you were planning on pulling some sort
of prank on a girl named Jen.”
    “Really?” Michelle said. “Who’s been talking
behind my back?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I overheard something
earlier. Listen, if it’s the Jen I’m thinking of, maybe you
shouldn’t. I’ve also heard she’s depressed and I wouldn’t want her
to get embarrassed and do something like hurt herself.”
    Michelle gasped. “Oh no, you don’t think she’d
really…. Oh no, you’re right. What was I thinking? Thanks.”
Michelle quickly left, passing right though Jerry on her way
out.
    “She just rolled her eyes as she left,” Jerry
said. “So I don’t think that she’s going to listen.”
    “Neither do I,” I said.
     
    * * * *
     
    “You could have gone to the school,” Mary
said.
    I shrugged. “I know. I thought about it, but
they would have asked the same questions. Who I heard it from.
Besides, something was telling me not to.”
    “Something?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “You know. I’m a freak,
remember?”
    “Bristol,” Mary said. “I wish you wouldn’t
think of yourself that way. I know being so different can’t be
easy, but there’s nothing wrong with you. I’ll bet if you told your
parents, they’d understand.”
    I rolled my eyes. “That would be a bet you’d
lose.”
    “Why do you say that?”
    I shook my head. I didn’t really want to go
there, but Mary wouldn’t let this go.
    “When I was little,” I explained, “I had this
dream that my teacher was going to die. He’d grab his chest in the
middle of a spelling lesson and keel over right in front of the
class. I had just turned six. I told my parents that I didn’t want
to go to school that day that something bad was going to
happen.”
    “But they made you go anyway,” Mary finished as
if she understood. “Bristol, you were six. Kids have bad dreams.
They had no way of knowing.”
    “They didn’t make me go to school that day,” I
said, surprising Mary. To be honest, I surprised myself by telling
her. “In fact, both my parents took the day off from work. We made
a day of it. We went to the park, saw a movie, went to the zoo.
Lots of fun things. It was a great day. In fact, it was the last
time I can ever remember having fun with Mom and Dad.”
    “It sounds like a lot of fun,” Mary
said.
    “It was,” I said. “I even forgot about my
teacher. But I was getting tired and I actually begged my parents
to go home. We