Read Online Impossible by Nancy Werlin - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Nancy Werlin
Tags: Romance, Fantasy, Family, Juvenile Fiction, Fantasy & Magic, Social Issues, Young Adult, Love & Romance, Pregnancy, Orphans & Foster Homes
Ads: Link
It's Zach. Are you in there? Lucy?"
Sometimes silence can be more telling than any noise. Zach could not have said why he suddenly knew Lucy was there. He just did.
He slammed open the door.
Lucy was standing before a row of sinks, flat-footed in the red high-tops. The hair on the back of her head, parted and pulled into her two braids, was mussed. She had a wad of wet paper towels in one hand, and there was a bigger pile on the sink counter beside her. On them, Zach could see … blood? And what was that colorful bit of silky fabric right next to the pile—oh. Oh.
She'd just dropped the hem of her skirt from her other hand. Zach had seen it fall back down into place around her calves as he came in.
Her eyes met his in the mirror.
She tried to smile. It was the most ghastly thing he'd ever seen, that she would try.
He thought of how he'd seen Gray running across the parking lot. Now he was certain it had been Gray. And he didn't understand fully yet—didn't want to—but nonetheless a sentence formed clearly inside his head.
I'm going to kill him.
Lucy's voice was a mere thread. "Zach? Can you please take me home?"
Thoughts of hospital emergency rooms and police stations chased themselves through Zach's head. But there was only one right thing to say to Lucy now.
"Yes," he said.
CHAPTER 15
It was my fault, Zach thought. For not getting there sooner.
It was my fault, Soledad thought. For letting Lucy go at all.
It was my fault, Leo thought. If only I had listened to Soledad and insisted on meeting the boy beforehand. Maybe I'd have known, somehow.
Only Lucy wasn't playing the blame game in the days that followed. But she had other, even more confusing thoughts to obsess over. She alternated between rage, bewildered shame, and then, most overwhelmingly, and inexpressibly, puzzlement.
Her original conviction that it had not been Gray attacking her, but somebody else using his body, was fuzzier. It was just plain hard for practical-minded Lucy to believe. Her mind had done some kind of a psychological disconnect, Lucy decided. In her shock, she had thought she'd seen and heard things that she really hadn't. Being spoken to in some unknown language. Being called Fenella. Ridiculous.
What would her parents think if she told them? There was enough insanity in the family already.
It wasn't as if it mattered now anyway. Reality was what mattered, and reality, Lucy told herself, was not only about Lucy.
Reality now included the fact that Gray Spencer was dead.
On the morning after prom, the news was all over the city of Waltham and even in Boston, being blared from the local TV news stations and in all the newspapers.
Prom Night Tragedy.
Last Dance for Waltham Teen.
Dancing, Drinking, and Driving Don't Mix.
One or two of the kids who had been at Lucy and Gray's table at the prom said to reporters that Gray hadn't been drinking at all, as far as they knew. But then they conceded that of course they hadn't been watching him every minute. He must have been drinking in secret, it became clear, because it turned out that Gray's blood alcohol level, tested as part of the autopsy, had been over the limit.
The news focused heavily on Gray's family. His mother blamed her ex-mother-in-law, Gray's grandmother. Crazy old bat with her one-year-too-early graduation present, Mrs. Spencer said on the evening news. If she hadn't already divorced Gray's father, she would do it now, she said. And then she cried, helplessly, on camera.
Gray's father had his own on-camera tirade, though it was delivered in more measured terms. He blamed the high school. What kind of chaperones let a kid at a school function get so drunk that he'd crash his car straight into a tree not three minutes after leaving the hotel? Hadn't the adults at the prom even realized kids were drinking? It was a scandal, said Mr. Spencer, and every parent in Waltham ought to be up in arms. He was going to sue the city over it, he said. He was already
Sometimes silence can be more telling than any noise. Zach could not have said why he suddenly knew Lucy was there. He just did.
He slammed open the door.
Lucy was standing before a row of sinks, flat-footed in the red high-tops. The hair on the back of her head, parted and pulled into her two braids, was mussed. She had a wad of wet paper towels in one hand, and there was a bigger pile on the sink counter beside her. On them, Zach could see … blood? And what was that colorful bit of silky fabric right next to the pile—oh. Oh.
She'd just dropped the hem of her skirt from her other hand. Zach had seen it fall back down into place around her calves as he came in.
Her eyes met his in the mirror.
She tried to smile. It was the most ghastly thing he'd ever seen, that she would try.
He thought of how he'd seen Gray running across the parking lot. Now he was certain it had been Gray. And he didn't understand fully yet—didn't want to—but nonetheless a sentence formed clearly inside his head.
I'm going to kill him.
Lucy's voice was a mere thread. "Zach? Can you please take me home?"
Thoughts of hospital emergency rooms and police stations chased themselves through Zach's head. But there was only one right thing to say to Lucy now.
"Yes," he said.
CHAPTER 15
It was my fault, Zach thought. For not getting there sooner.
It was my fault, Soledad thought. For letting Lucy go at all.
It was my fault, Leo thought. If only I had listened to Soledad and insisted on meeting the boy beforehand. Maybe I'd have known, somehow.
Only Lucy wasn't playing the blame game in the days that followed. But she had other, even more confusing thoughts to obsess over. She alternated between rage, bewildered shame, and then, most overwhelmingly, and inexpressibly, puzzlement.
Her original conviction that it had not been Gray attacking her, but somebody else using his body, was fuzzier. It was just plain hard for practical-minded Lucy to believe. Her mind had done some kind of a psychological disconnect, Lucy decided. In her shock, she had thought she'd seen and heard things that she really hadn't. Being spoken to in some unknown language. Being called Fenella. Ridiculous.
What would her parents think if she told them? There was enough insanity in the family already.
It wasn't as if it mattered now anyway. Reality was what mattered, and reality, Lucy told herself, was not only about Lucy.
Reality now included the fact that Gray Spencer was dead.
On the morning after prom, the news was all over the city of Waltham and even in Boston, being blared from the local TV news stations and in all the newspapers.
Prom Night Tragedy.
Last Dance for Waltham Teen.
Dancing, Drinking, and Driving Don't Mix.
One or two of the kids who had been at Lucy and Gray's table at the prom said to reporters that Gray hadn't been drinking at all, as far as they knew. But then they conceded that of course they hadn't been watching him every minute. He must have been drinking in secret, it became clear, because it turned out that Gray's blood alcohol level, tested as part of the autopsy, had been over the limit.
The news focused heavily on Gray's family. His mother blamed her ex-mother-in-law, Gray's grandmother. Crazy old bat with her one-year-too-early graduation present, Mrs. Spencer said on the evening news. If she hadn't already divorced Gray's father, she would do it now, she said. And then she cried, helplessly, on camera.
Gray's father had his own on-camera tirade, though it was delivered in more measured terms. He blamed the high school. What kind of chaperones let a kid at a school function get so drunk that he'd crash his car straight into a tree not three minutes after leaving the hotel? Hadn't the adults at the prom even realized kids were drinking? It was a scandal, said Mr. Spencer, and every parent in Waltham ought to be up in arms. He was going to sue the city over it, he said. He was already
Similar Books
