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"It's all right," I said.

"I suppose I should be happy he's doing something productive with his time. It keeps him out of my hair," he added. Then he looked up at me quickly and smiled.

"He did teach me how to drive. He wasn't the most patient instructor, but we got through it. I'm sure he'll be nicer to you than he was to me. He was nicer to my sister."

It was the first time he had ever made a reference to her, I thought. There were all sorts of questions on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back.

"If it's in the least bit unpleasant for you, don't hesitated to--"

"I'll be fine," I said, more confidently.

He nodded.

"I'm sure you will."

Ami didn't get up and come down before it was time for Wade and I to leave. As we drew closer to the school, I could see he was more nervous than I was about how the other students would treat me.

"You let me know if the Foleys made up any stories about you," he told me. "Chris Foley knows his son was drinking, and it was entirely his fault. You'll let me know," he said again when we pulled into the school lot.

"I'll be okay, Wade. Thanks," I told him.

When I entered my homeroom, I saw from the looks on their faces that the other students were chatting about me and Trevor. Lynette Firestone pouted, and Germaine Osterhout gloated.

"I guess you knocked Trevor off his feet," Waverly quipped. "By the time he left you, he was too dizzy to navigate."

The boys laughed licentiously, and the girls looked at me with glee lighting up their eyes.

"If you had confided in me, I could have helped you back there," Lynette told me after the bell had rung and we were off to our first class.

"Help me with what?" I asked her.

After what I had been through in my life, being the object of some juvenile humor was hardly worth a second thought. It was easy to ignore them, to look right though them and let their words bounce off my ears.

"They'll ruin your reputation," Lynette said, "and don't expect Trevor Foley to come to your aid later on. You'll see. They all stick together!'

Maybe they do, I thought, but what was so important about it anyway? Suddenly my time here, living with the Emersons, going to this rich school, didn't seem as desirable as I had hoped it would be. I used to sit in the orphanage and dream about turning eighteen and being on my own. I was like someone who was serving a prison sentence and counting the days to freedom. This life now was supposed to be the start of that freedom--look at all that had been lavished upon me already--but in ways I could never have imagined, I felt even more incarcerated than I had been at the orphanage.

Was this my destiny, always to be under some form of lock and key, always to be in invisible chains? When would I be free? When would I truly be able to breathe?

Ami was there at the end of the school day, naturally full of questions about how the other students had treated me.

"I'm sorry I didn't get up in time to speak to you before you left for school today. I wanted to warn you how catty some of these girls can be. What sort of mean things did they say? Did Lynette help you? Have they begun to spin nasty rumors about you?" "I ignored them," I said.

"Well, what did they say?" she asked. She had to know the details.

"I really don't know, Ami. I didn't listen."

"But--"

"I just walked away from their smug smiles and whispers and concentrated on my lessons. I had a surprise quiz in math, and I have a project to complete in social studies, so I spent my lunch hour and free time in the library. Oh," I added, sounding as if I was going to describe an accomplishment, "Mrs. Grossbard doesn't think she has a place for me on the golf team. She evaluated my ability to drive and putt, and determined it wasn't my forte."

I smiled to indicate how trivial I thought it all was. Ami's mouth opened and closed.

"Well, that's . . . how . . . I'll speak to Mrs. Brentwood about that," she vowed.

"I don't care. It's fine. I'm really not interested in being on the team. I do have an interesting assignment for the newspaper, however. I'm going to do all the book reviews. I've been made the book editor, in fact," I said.

Her mouth drooped.


Tags: V.C. Andrews Gemini Horror