Read Online Lessons in Love by Emily Franklin - Free Book Online Page A

huge cemetery, the kind with old, tilting gravestones. The place either looks poetic and nearly picturesque in that Ye Olde New England way, or else totally creepy. “How could it be worse?”
    Chili looked at me, polishing off the last of her bar. “You and LP could be together. Hey, she might take pity on me —”
    “Or try to convert you to her wicked ways.”
    “But with you she’d have been out for blood right away.”
    We stared at each other before she went off to the main assembly and I went toward the senior gathering. I don’t really think she’ll be turned into one of Lindsay’s drones, but I guess you never know. And I like that she and I are both protective of each other. “You’re sweet, anyway,” I said.
    “Just get me Dalton Himmelman’s attention and we’re even,” Chili grinned and with a flick on my arm — she’s big into flicking as a form of greeting and departure — she was off.
    So I’d made amends about the rooming fiasco, but what about Dalton? You can’t exactly demand someone take notice of another human being. But I guess I could try. Jacob and I are supposed to be resuming our multi-layered friendship; I like him, he likes me, he hooks up with Lindsay Parrish while I’m in London, now I’m taken, we never get together, that sort of thing. So maybe that’s my in with Dalton. Maybe this week, after any sense of newness has worn off and we’re back to business at Hadley.
    The bell rings and I realize that my first period of senior year is over. Never again will have another first period of the year here. Finally, the solid understanding of how fleeting each day is gets to me. That feeling other girls had with the ribbon ceremony last night fills me up until I want to scream, THIS IS IT! Everything now is a countdown.
    My thoughts must show on my face, or else Dalton Himmelman can read minds. Beside me in the doorway, he doesn’t touch me but bites his lower lip and studies my eyes. “You okay, Bukowski?”
    Everyone calls me Love. I’m not one of those girls — whatever breed they are — who gets called by their surname. And I don’t play sports, so I never really hear my last name as a point of reference other than an attendance sheet, which prep schools don’t have (they don’t need to with a student-teacher ratio of 12:1 max). I look at Dalton, about to feed him a line —yeah, I’m fine — but he says more instead. “Kind of intense, right?” He looks at me as the rush of students swell the hallway. “The starting and ending of things at the same time?”
    I nod at him, amazed at the perfection of how he summed it up, and before I know it, we’re sucked into the wave of bodies, both going our separate ways.

Chapter Six
    By the end of the week I’ve been promoted from false-freshman.
    “I’m finally a senior!” I say to Chris and Chili on the way to lunch. The entryway to the dining hall is packed — it always is on fresh fish Fridays. Students are queued up for the catch of the day prepared any way they like — pan-seared, fried, baked, or breaded.
    “Oh, I’m already baked,” Trevor Mason says to the lunch lady. Chili, Chris and I chuckle, taking in his standard Visine-clear eyes and wastoid physique. He and his stoner crew move as one loose-limbed unit, paving the way for us.
    “Pan-seared,” Chris orders when it’s his turn. Chili and I nod.
    “So, what’s it like to be a freshman all over again?” Chris asks.
    “I’m done with that — so smart I breezed through to seniordom in less than a week.” I smile, thinking back to that first day and how I’d been stuck sticking to my Class IV schedule. When I complained, the registrar informed me that if I didn’t attend the classes on my printout, I would be issued cuts. “It was insane, though. It makes me curious how all those colleges can keep track of all those applications — how the world doesn’t just screw things up all the time.”
    “Oh,” Chili says, snagging napkins for us