The next day was unseasonably fair, too beautiful to be going to school, but I couldn’t skip a second day without coming up with a really good excuse. It wasn’t that I’d get too far behind; it just seemed that when you never miss school for a certain length of time, people tend to notice when you do. Rachel had already called twice and left an ominous voicemail saying I’d picked the wrong day to cut class, Grace Brisbane! Olivia hadn’t called since our argument in the hall, so I guessed that meant we weren’t on speaking terms.
Sam drove me to school in the Bronco while I hastily caught up on some of my English homework I hadn’t done the day before. Once he’d parked, I opened the door, letting in a gust of unseasonably warm air. Sam turned his face toward the open door, his eyes half-closed.
“I love this weather. I feel so me.”
Watching him bask in the sun, winter seemed a million miles away, and I couldn’t imagine him leaving me. I wanted to memorize the crooked line of his nose for later daydreaming. For a moment, I felt an irrational stab of guilt that my feelings for Sam were replacing those that I’d had for my wolf — until I remembered that he was my wolf. All over again, I had the weird sensation of the ground shifting beneath me at the fact of his existence, immediately followed by relief. My obsession was so — easy now. The only thing I had to explain to my friends was where my new boyfriend had come from.
“I guess I have to go,” I said. “I don’t want to.”
Sam’s eyes opened the rest of the way and focused on me. “I’ll be here when you come back, promise.” He added, very formal, “May I use your car?
I’d like to see if Beck’s still human, and if not, whether his house has the power turned on.”
I nodded, but part of me hoped the power would be off at Beck’s house. I kind of wanted Sam back in my bed, where I could keep him from disappearing like the dream that he was. I climbed out of the Bronco with my backpack. “Don’t get any tickets, speed racer.”
As I came around the front of the vehicle, Sam rolled down his window.
“Hey!”
“What?”
Shyly, he said, “Come here, Grace.” I smiled at the way he said my name and returned to the window, smiling wider when I realized what he wanted.
His careful kiss didn’t fool me; as soon as I parted my lips slightly, he sighed and pulled back. “I’ll make you late for school.”
I grinned. I was on top of the world. “You’ll be back at three?”
“Wouldn’t miss it.”
I watched him pull out of the lot, already feeling the length of the school day stretching before me.
A notebook smacked my arm. “Who was that?!”
I turned to Rachel and tried to think of something that was easier than the truth. “My ride?”
Rachel didn’t push the issue, mostly because her brain was already on to something else. She grabbed my elbow and began steering me toward the school. Surely, surely, there had to be some kind of eternal reward waiting for me for going to school on a gorgeous day like this with Sam in my car.
Rachel wiggled my arm to get my attention. “Grace. Focus. There was a wolf outside of the school yesterday. In the parking lot. Like, everyone saw it when school got out.”
“What?” I turned and looked over my shoulder at the lot, trying to imagine a wolf amongst the cars. The sparse pine trees that bordered the lot didn’t connect with Boundary Wood; the wolf would’ve had to cross several streets and yards to get to the parking lot. “What did it look like?”
Rachel gave me a weird look. “The wolf?”
I nodded.
“Like a wolf. Gray.” Rachel saw my withering look and shrugged. “I don’t know, Grace. Bluish-gray? With mucky gross scratches on its shoulder.
It looked scruffy.”
So it was Jack. It had to be. “It must have been total chaos,” I said.
“Yeah, you should’ve been here, wolf-girl. Seriously. Nobody got hurt, thank God, but Olivia completely freaked out. The whole school was freaked out. Isabel was totally hysterical and made a huge scene.” Rachel squeezed my arm. “So why didn’t you pick up your phone, anyway?”
We walked into the school; the doors were propped open to let in the balmy air. “Battery died.”
Rachel made a face and spoke louder to be heard over the crush of students in the halls. “So, are you sick? I never thought I’d live to see the day that you didn’t make it to class. Between you not being in class and wild animals roaming the parking lot, I thought the world was coming to an end. I was waiting for the rains of blood.”
“I think I got some sort of twenty-four-hour bug,” I replied.
“Ew, should I not touch you?” But instead of moving away, Rachel slammed her shoulder into mine with a grin. I laughed and shoved her off, and as I did, I saw Isabel Culpeper. My smile faded. She was leaning against the wall by one of the drinking fountains, her shoulders hunched forward. At first I thought she was looking at her cell phone, but then I realized her hands were empty and she was just staring at the ground. If she hadn’t been such an ice princess, I would’ve thought she was crying. I wondered if I should talk to her.
As if reading my thoughts, Isabel looked up then, and her eyes, so similar to Jack’s, met mine. I could read the challenge in them: So what are you looking at, huh?
I looked away quickly and kept walking with Rachel, but I had the uncomfortable sense of things left unsaid.
