Read Online Raven by V. C. Andrews - Free Book Online Page B

gazing at you with interest. Every time I moved or turned, when I rose to walk out of the classroom, even when I picked up my pen to write in my notebook, I was very conscious of how I looked. I couldn't wait to get to a mirror to check my face and my hair. I hated my clothes and regretted not watching my mother do her makeup when she did it well.
    I tried not to be obvious when I looked at Ronnie, and if he caught me looking, I always shifted my eyes quickly and pretended I didn't have the slightest interest in him. Sometimes he smiled, and sometimes he looked disappointed. He was as shy as I was, and I thought it would take a bulldozer to push us dramatically into each other's path. He didn't seem to have the nerve to sit next to me in the cafeteria or come up to me in the hallway, and after a while, I was afraid that I might be making more of his gazes than there was. Nothing could be more embarrassing than thinking a boy liked you when he didn't.
    One afternoon, when I was in gym class, I looked at the doorway to the gymnasium and saw him standing there looking my way. We were playing volleyball, and we were all in our gym outfits. The ball bounced close to the doorway, and I chased it and seized it, looking up at him at the same time.
"Nice," he said.
    Butterflies panicked in my chest, but I gave him the best smile I could muster. Mrs. Wilson blew her whistle and shouted for me to get back into the game. Ronnie walked away quickly before she chastised him for being there, but at lunch, he came up to me in the line and told me I was pretty good at volleyball.
"You could probably be on the girls' team now instead of waiting another year," he said.
    "Tell me what it's like to be on a school team," I asked him, and he followed me to the table.
We started dating soon after that, but never did much more than hold hands and kiss a few times after school. I met him at the movies one night, but he had to go home right afterward. And then, just as suddenly as it had all started, it ended. He turned away from me as if I had been just another interesting picture in a museum. Soon he was off looking at other girls the way he'd once looked at me. I felt stupid chasing after him, so I stopped looking for him, and that was about when my school attendance began to drop off anyway.
There were many fewer students at the school I now attended and only about a dozen or so boys I would consider as good-looking as Ronnie Clark. I agreed with Jennifer that I could never expect any of them to take any interest in me, but to my surprise that very afternoon after Jennifer and her friends had teased me about Clarence Dunsen, a chubby boy named Gary Carson bumped into me deliberately between classes, and when I turned to complain, he smiled and said, "Jimmy Freer likes you."
He hurried on, leaving me confused. I knew who Jimmy Freer was. He was captain of the junior varsity basketball team, tall for his age, and very, very good-looking. He was right at the top of Jennifer's wish list, and I never even dreamed he would be looking at me, but at lunch he was suddenly right behind me when I went to buy some milk.
"That's the healthy choice," he quipped. I turned and, for a moment, was too surprised to speak. "Most everyone else is buying soda."
"I don't drink much soda," I told him. "Milk's okay." I paid for my milk and headed for the table where Terri and some of the other girls I liked were sitting, but he caught up with me.
"How about sitting with me?" he asked, and nodded toward an empty table on our right.
I gazed at the girls, who were all looking my way with interest, and then I turned and saw Jennifer and her friends staring at me, too. It warmed my heart to see the jealousy in their faces and made me smile.
"Okay," I said. He led the way and set his tray down across from me.
"How do you like the school here?" he asked, dipping his spoon into his bowl of chicken rice soup. "It's okay."
"Is that your favorite word?" he joked.
"No. Sometimes I say