Read Online Haunted by Meg Cabot - Free Book Online Page B

from fine…that the mere sight of Paul Slater had nearly caused me to have a heart attack. “I told you. I’m over it, Jesse. And even if I wasn’t, it’s not like it’s going to keep me from helping Craig. Or Neil, really.”
    But it was like he wasn’t even listening.
    “Let Father Dominic take this one,” Jesse said. He nodded toward the door through which Craig had just walked—literally. “You aren’t ready yet. It’s too soon.”
    Now I wished I had told him about Paul…told him nonchalantly, as if it were nothing, to prove to him that’s that what it was to me…nothing.
    Except of course it wasn’t. And it never would be.
    “Your solicitude,” I said sarcastically in order to hide my discomfort over the whole thing—the fact that I was lying to him, not just about Paul but about myself as well—“is appreciated but misplaced. I can handle Craig Jankow, Jesse.”
    He frowned again. But this time, I could see, he really was annoyed. Were we ever to actually date, I knew it would take a lot of Oprah viewing before Jesse learned to get over his nineteenth-century machismo .
    “I will go,” he said threateningly, his dark eyes looking black as onyx in the light from my dressing table, “and tell Father Dominic myself.”
    “Fine,” I said. “Be my guest.”
    Which wasn’t what I’d wanted to say, of course. What I’d wanted to say was, Why? Why can’t we be together, Jesse? I know you want to. Don’t even bother denying it. I felt it when you kissed me. I may not have a lot of experience in that department, but I know I’m not wrong about that. You like me, at least a little. So what’s the deal? Why have you been giving me the cold shoulder ever since? WHY?
    Whatever the reason might have been, Jesse wasn’t revealing it just then. Instead, he set his jaw, and went, “Fine, I will.”
    “Go ahead,” I shot back.
    A second later, he was gone. Poof , just like that.
    Well, who needed him, anyway?
    All right. I did. I admit it.
    But I tried resolutely to put him out of my head. I concentrated instead on my trig homework.
     
     
     
    I was still concentrating on it when fourth period—computer lab, for me—rolled around the next day. I am telling you, there is nothing more devastating to a girl’s ability to study than a handsome ghost who thinks he knows everything.
    I was, of course, supposed to be working on a five-hundred-word essay on the Civil War, which had been punitively assigned to the entire eleventh grade by our advisor, Mr. Walden, who had not appreciated the behavior of a few of us during that morning’s nominations for student government positions.
    In particular, Mr. Walden had not appreciated my behavior when, after Kelly’s nomination of Paul for vice president had been seconded and passed, CeeCee had raised her hand and nominated me for vice president as well.
    “Ow,” CeeCee had cried, when I’d kicked her, hard, beneath her desk. “What is wrong with you?”
    “I don’t want to be vice president,” I’d hissed at her. “Put your arm down.”
    This had resulted in a good deal of snickering, which had not died down until Mr. Walden, never the world’s most patient instructor, threw a piece of chalk at the classroom door and told us we’d all better brush up on our American history—five hundred words on the Battle of Gettysburg, to be exact.
    But my objection came too late. CeeCee’s nomination of me was seconded by Adam, and passed a second later, despite my protests. I was now running for vice president of the junior class—CeeCee was my campaign manager, Adam, whose grandfather had left him a healthy trust fund, the main financial contributor to my bid for election—against the new guy, Paul Slater, whose aw-shucks manner and stunning good looks had already won him almost every female vote in the class.
    Not that I cared. I didn’t want to be VP anyway. I had enough on my hands, what with the mediator thing and trigonometry and my dead would-be