The Color of Grace

by Linda Kage

  “Mourning your bowling defeat?” I asked.

  I could almost see him grin as he read my response. Something inside me glowed with delight.

  “Trying to figure out how you cheated,” he quipped back.

  “I don’t cheat!” Hopefully, he caught on that my tone was playful indignation, so I added a smiley face before returning, “How could I when I’ve never even played before?”

  “So you SAY you’d never played before.”

  “I haven’t.”

  For a moment, he didn’t respond. I deflated, thinking our conversation was over. I even X’ed out of the chat box and began to log off when suddenly the box popped back up.

  “Todd just called me. To gloat.”

  I frowned, no idea what he was talking about. I should’ve let it be. But curiosity and a really bad feeling had me asking, “Gloat about what?”

  “Come on, Grace. He’s my best friend. Did you honestly think he wouldn’t kiss and tell? Especially about this?”

  My face heated.

  Oh. My. God.

  Ryder Yates knew Todd had kissed me?

  Why would Todd tell him that?

  The sudden sick swirling in the pit of my stomach rose up my throat, making me wish yet again I could start the entire day over and tell Todd I wasn’t interested the first moment he asked me to meet him after the game.

  My jaw hardened as I wrote, “Well. I’m SO freaking happy I could give your best friend a reason to gloat in your face. Honestly. What girl doesn’t love being the object of a gloat?” The frowny face I added didn’t seem necessary, but I wanted to get my mood across.

  Gloating indeed.

  Humph.

  A minute later, Ryder typed, “Maybe I shouldn’t have told you I knew.”

  I snorted aloud. “Gee, you think?”

  “Sorry. It didn’t occur to me how this would make you feel. I was too worried about how…”

  “You were too worried about what?” I asked when his note cut off in the middle of the sentence.

  “Ignore that last part,” he answered. “I didn’t mean to type it. Accidentally hit enter instead of backspace.”

  “Too late. You sent it; now you have to explain.”

  “Really? I have to explain? Think about it from my point of view. The girl I was interested in totally turns me down only to show up in my school and kiss my BEST FRIEND. What do you think I’m going through here?”

  I’d never read a note before and actually seen the author yelling in my head, like I could envision Ryder scowling at me as he pounded out his words, torturing his poor keyboard with his angry thoughts.

  For the space of two seconds, I wallowed in guilt. It had never been my intent to play two friends against each other. An awful, creeping, sick acid swirled through my gut, making me feel dirty and wish for the million and second time that I could start over fresh.

  But the moment passed as I waded through the guilt and realized I hadn’t invited Todd to kiss me; I hadn’t even wanted him to. And besides, even if I had, that really didn’t give Ryder the right to yell at me. Just because a boy talked to a girl one time at a basketball game weeks ago by no means meant she was forever after forbidden to kiss his friends. Geesh. The nerve.

  Stiffening my back, I began to persecute my own keyboard with righteous indignation. “You shouldn’t be going through anything. YOU have a girlfriend.”

  Within moments, he shot back, “What does she have to do with it?”

  With a roll of my eyes, I answered. “If you flirt with one girl while you’re dating another, you forfeit all rights to feel jealous when the first girl moves on.”

  “Okay, stop right there. What makes you think I was dating Kiera the night of that game?”

  “Oh, come on. You seriously want me to believe you became known as the most sexually active couple in school in THREE WEEKS?”

  I couldn’t believe I actually wrote that. And pushed send. But typing something felt so much braver than saying it aloud, which I probably never would’ve done.

  “WHAT?” he exploded almost immediately. “Who told you that? Todd?”

  I sniffed. “No, he did not. It doesn’t matter who told me. Everyone says it, that’s the point.”

  “And you actually believe it?”

  I bit my lip. I wished I could hear the inflection in his words instead of just reading them on the screen. He seemed hurt by Laina’s gossip. But I couldn’t tell for sure. Not unless I actually saw his face and heard his voice. Still, it made me wonder. Could the gossip be just that? Gossip.

  “You’re unbelievable,” he wrote on. “You brushed me off in the first place, so technically, you should forfeit all your rights to feel upset if I now have a girlfriend, which I DID NOT have when I first met you. But it doesn’t work that way, does it? You can’t help what you feel, whether you should feel it or not. And I can’t help being upset that YOU spent the night sucking face with MY BEST FRIEND.”

  I sighed. Geesh, he had a point. If I forced myself to see things from his perspective, then okay, it’d sting to be shot down by a girl only for her to turn around and kiss his friend. But honestly, he didn’t have all the facts.

  “If it makes you feel better, he’s the one who kissed me.” There. Hopefully that mollified him.

  It didn’t.

  “Did you stop him?” he persisted.

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. It didn’t seem fair to Todd to reveal that I had indeed pulled away from him...after five seconds of not pulling away.

  “Did you like it?” Ryder prodded when I didn’t answer the last question.

  Gritting my teeth, I wrote, “I’m leaving now,” and quickly, I logged off.

  I blew out a breath, staring at the login screen that had popped up, beckoning me to re-enter my password. Unable to stop myself, I logged back in to see if he was gone.

  “I knew you’d come back.”

  Dang it. Now he knew I was interested. I needed to set this guy straight. Clearing my throat, I settled my fingers on the keyboard and commenced to putting him in his place—or what I fully believed would put him in his place. “I don’t think your girlfriend would like knowing you’re talking to me right now.”

  Alas, I fear he wasn’t intimidated in the least because he shot back, “You remind me I have a girlfriend a lot.”

  I groaned and returned, “You seem to forget a lot.”

  “Trust me, Kiera doesn’t let me forget.”

  Interesting. “Do I detect bitterness?” I had to ask.

  When he didn’t immediately respond, my fingers flew again, typing with a fury. “If you don’t like her, then why are you with her?”

  But just as I hit send, another message popped up. “I have your glove.”

  I frowned. “What glove?”

  Again, he responded with “Kiera’s not so bad,” about as soon as I pressed enter.

  Ack, now we had two conversations going on with each other. Confusion much.

  With a snort, I snidely typed, “Not so bad. Now THAT sounds like true love.”

  It took him a while to respond with, “The red and black striped glove from the snow. I found it on the floor in my room where all the coats had been piled.”

  About the same time I said, “It must’ve fallen out of my coat pocket,” he retorted, “I’m in high school. Who meets their one true love in high school?”

  I gasped, royally offended. “My mom and dad were high school sweethearts.”

  “So is that why she just got remarried to the dentist, because she and your dad are ONE TRUE LOVES?”

  Gritting my teeth, I pounced. “She got remarried because my dad’s been DEAD for thirteen years.” Tactless moron.

  About twenty seconds later, he respectfully wrote, “Sorry.”

  If that humble little word hadn’t looked so apologetic, I probably would’ve been able to stay ticked at him. But my shoulders slumped as I said, “It’s okay. I don’t remember him. I was only three.”

  “How did it ha
ppen?”

  The fact that he asked made my chest ache. “Car accident. He was driving home from work. Someone ran a red light. Side swiped him.”

  “Must be strange, suddenly having a new dad again.”

  I shrugged. Yeah, but, “Barry’s fine. He mostly lets my mom deal with me. And when he does step in, he sides with me. So I can’t complain.”

  “Bet your mom doesn’t like that though.”

  I couldn’t believe he’d nailed the problem I was having with my mother so accurately on the head. It bothered me. No one was supposed to know more about me than I did.

  “Go ahead and throw the glove away,” I typed, not wanting to discuss my mom just then.

  “Why’d you keep it in the first place? What good is a matchless glove?”

  I scowled, wanting to defend my homeless glove. But honestly, I didn’t know the answer to his question, so I said, “I don’t know.”

  “If you think you’re like that glove, all alone in a foreign place with no one to turn to, you’re wrong. People are looking out for you.”

  I frowned. What was he trying to say? Was he looking out for me? It made no sense. Why would he bother? He was still mad at me for kissing Todd. Besides, we didn’t even know each other.

  But then he added, “I saw your profile page. Lots of Hillsburg people asked how your first day went. You’re not alone, Grace.”

  I wanted to cry. How could he know so much? How could he know what was bothering me the most? And how could he know how to say exactly the right thing to make me feel better?

  “I should probably go.” This conversation was getting too dangerous. We’d already strayed into forbidden topics long ago, but this seemed to move deeper than just talking.

  He wasn’t finished, however. He just had to go and ask, “Did you like the kiss or not?”

  I knew I should’ve logged out right then, except I felt I owed him some kind of answer. “I don’t know.” Okay, so it was a lame answer, but it was all I had.

  “So you didn’t,” he said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Didn’t have to.”

  “I just don’t have anything to compare it to.” I groaned as soon as I sent that. Great. Why did I have to go and tell Ryder Yates his best friend had given me my first kiss? I wanted to smack an L to my own forehead.

  He hesitated a moment before shooting back, “Doesn’t matter. If you liked it, you’d already know.”

  That time, I didn’t even warn him I was leaving. I simply logged off.

  But the boy was right. If I’d liked Todd’s kiss, I would know. And all I knew was that I didn’t want to kiss Ryder’s friend ever again.

  Chapter 13

  Black. Ever since I took up with this new crowd, I’ve had oily, black darkness gunked to my fingers, like I’ve been sticking my hands in dark places they don’t belong, hanging around shadowy people who could only suck me down into their void of life they actually think is important. Today, I’m determined to wash my hands free of all this black.

  * * * *

  To provide for more electives, Southeast worked their classes in a block schedule. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, a student could attend the first half of their classes. Then, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, they’d finish off taking the last half.

  The next week, the schedule would switch, and all the classes a student had on Monday, Wednesday and Friday the week before would then fall on Tuesday and Thursday. Likewise, with the last Tuesday and Thursday classes, they would then turn into Monday, Wednesday, and Friday classes.

  One week was called Purple Week, the next was White Week—in honor of their school colors, I presume.

  As I entered Southeast on the Tuesday after my first day there, it was a white week. I felt a little more reassured, and yet a lot more anxious. I’d connected with a few people last night. But I still wasn’t sure if they were the type of crowd for me. Actually, I was almost positive they weren’t. Mindy was nice, and Todd was—

  Well, I didn’t want to think about Todd this morning. And I certainly didn’t want to think about Ryder. My best plan of action was to simply step away from both friends. That way Ryder wouldn’t be weirded out, Todd wouldn’t have any more reasons to gloat, and I wouldn’t be stuck in some icky triangle I wanted nothing to do with.

  My decision firmly in place, I hunted up Laina and found her in the same spot she’d been sitting the morning before, her face hidden by an open book. I checked out the title. It was a popular novel, something Schy had read and raved about, but I wasn’t much of a reader, so I shrugged.

  “Hey, Laina,” I said, grinning down at her.

  She jumped, lowered the book enough to see me, and then gawked. “Oh! Umm…hi.”

  When she glanced both ways as if she wanted to make sure no one saw us together, I frowned. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah. Fine.” But she still had that jumpy, I-want-to-flee presence about her.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  She sighed and lowered the book another inch. “Look, you probably don’t want to be seen with me.”

  Something plopped deep into my belly. Dread. This was just great. What did she know that I didn’t?

  “Why wouldn’t I want to be seen with you?”

  “Well…you’re dating the Stang now.”

  My jaw dropped. If she’d punched me and then pulled my hair, I don’t think I would’ve been any more shocked than I was in that moment.

  Sputtering, I demanded, “What? Who? Who’s the Stang?”

  “The Stang,” she repeated, staring at me as if I’d lost my mind. “Short for Stangman.”

  I shook my head. “Okay,” I uttered, hoping she’d elaborate.

  She didn’t.

  “I’m not exactly…part of that group,” she tried to explain, looking panicked as if she wanted to break up with me but didn’t want to hurt my feelings. “If you’re seen around me, they…they might not like you anymore.”

  Still reeling in confusion and utter shock, I opened my mouth to demand answers, an explanation. But it struck me Laina was an innocent bystander here. If I wanted the truth, I’d have to seek the source. And I had a sneaking suspicion I knew exactly who held all the answers.

  “Excuse me. I have to…” Go kill someone. Brushing past her, I marched toward senior hall. As I stormed, a group of boys stood chatting in my path. About to dodge around them, I inadvertently made eye contact with one boy who looked up. He saw me and pushed his friend out of my way so I could keep going straight.

  “Dude, get out the way of Stangman’s woman.”

  Grinding my teeth hard and not even caring if I ended up with braces over this, I rushed past. As soon as I entered senior hall, I glanced in the direction of Ryder’s locker since that was the only place I’d ever seen Todd in the hallway. Hoping his locker might be located close, I frowned, muttering under my breath when I didn’t see him or anyone from the night before lingering in the vicinity.

  “Morning, Grace,” someone said behind him. “You look a little…upset today.”

  I whirled around and glared up at Ryder. He wasn’t exactly the one I planned to murder, but I’d settle for him if I had to. By the mocking little gleam of joy in his eyes, I didn’t think I’d feel so bad about his death just then either.

  “What’s Todd’s last name?” I demanded.

  He laughed the same delighted musical sound from the night of the Hillsburg/Southeast game. But this time, I wanted to strangle instead of kiss him.

  “I think you already know.”

  I scowled. “Do you realize what people are calling me?”

  His smile spread. I figured there was just enough room for my foot so I could kick him in the teeth.

  “I had a feeling you wouldn’t like your new name.”

  “You started the rumors, didn’t you?” I charged, looming close and pointing an accusing finger at him, ready to poke him as hard as I could in the chest.

  Grin dying, Ryder narrowed his eyes
and glared right back. “Why would I start the rumors?”

  “Because…” I faltered, not too sure of a reason. Before I could think up an answer, someone slipped an arm around my shoulder and tugged my left side against a warm body.

  Screeching, I leaped away and almost bumped into Ryder. He grasped my arm to steady me even as I discovered who was harassing me.

  Todd offered me an apologetic smile. “Sorry about that.”

  “You!” I growled, pointing my angry digit at him now.

  Todd pulled back, lifting his brows. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “We need to talk.” Spinning around, I marched down the hall toward another smaller passage that led to a side, emergency exit. It was abandoned just as I’d hoped it would be.

  Behind me, I heard Ryder’s gloating taunt, “You’re gonna get in trouble,” before footsteps hurried after me.

  When I whirled back around, I was happy and a little surprised to see Todd had actually followed me.

  The control I suddenly wielded from managing to make him obey my command empowered me to speak my mind.

  “First of all,” I started. “I’m not some trophy to wave around because you think you beat someone else in a competition that didn’t even take place. I’m a human being…with feelings. And I don’t appreciate becoming the object of a gloat. So don’t ever do that again.”

  Todd crinkled his brows, then scratched at his goatee with a scrambled kind of confusion before he said, “Umm, don’t do what again, exactly?”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Never mind.” There was too much to rail about to stop and explain. “Second of all, everyone is calling me Stangman’s woman this morning. And I have no idea who’s behind it.”

  Eyes clearing—thank goodness he actually understood this complaint—Todd grinned. “Oh, well that’s easy. I am.”

  “You?” I exploded. “You mean you started those rumors? How could you?”

  Smile crumbling, Todd blinked, his confusion reappearing. “I’m sorry. Didn’t you want anyone to know?”

  “Of course I don’t. Why would I want people thinking something that’s not true?”

  “Not true?” he echoed.