Gravity - By Abigail Boyd Page 0,44

sun getting in my vision and making me blink, ruining the effect. "Why are you expecting anything from me? And why should I know any different?"

"Because I told you how things were," he argued, irritation flaring up on his usually agreeable features. "I thought you would believe me."

"I did believe you," I said softly, feeling defeated. "I just...thought I was wrong." I heard him scoff gently beneath his breath.

"I've told her that we're just friends," he said emphatically, retrieving the leaf that was still tucked between my fingers and spinning it with his own.

"Why are you always hanging out with her?" I asked. "I see you together in the halls, you sit with her in class...not that I'm paying attention." But of course, that's exactly what I'd been doing. I could feel the heat rising on my face, up to my forehead.

He shrugged, and we started walking on our way again. The clouds were hanging low in the sky, as if it might start raining. I wondered if we would make it.

"Because Lainey always seems to be around," he said. "Our dads are old pals, so it's an unfortunate requirement. But she drives me crazy." He snickered at some private thought I wished I knew. "Every conversation is about her clothes and her hair and blah blah blah and my only allowed input are my views on those things. I just do my part, nod and smile and it keeps her off my back."

I tried to take in what he told me. But for some reason it seemed like just words. I kept waiting for him to admit to tricking me, my paranoid nature winning out my thoughts.

"What is up with this, by the way?" he asked, snagging an acrylic black and orange striped spider off of the nearest mailbox. "It's like A Nightmare Before Christmas. I've never seen so many people decorate for Halloween. Do they know it's still September?"

He gestured to the huge blown up snowglobe in front of us, where a cutesy grim reaper and his scythe waited inside.

I shrugged, retrieving the spider and plopping it back on the mailbox, the googly eyes wiggling at me.

"That's just Hell. Everyone takes a lot of pride in whatever heritage they think we have. This is it."

We arrived at my house at the same time the first drops of rain splattered the pavement. Hugh merely smiled and said hi to Henry; no more questions for the moment. He apparently was satisfied with his interrogation last time.

We took our seats in on the couch in the den again. It seemed strange to have him back next to me, when I had assumed that since Lainey had snagged him I'd barely ever talk to him again. It was hard to concentrate on the numbers and shapes, but I forced myself to listen to the hypnotizing sound of his voice. I tried to pretend he was someone, anyone else.

By the time his dad came to pick him up, I felt prepared for my test, at least not to fail. As he waved goodbye to me, it finally sunk in that he and Lainey weren't actually together. I sat down on the couch in the living room, looking at the swirling green walls. I could almost imagine figures moving between the whorls.

If they weren't together, then why did everyone think they were? And what did they think about Henry and me?

October arrived, bringing the cold with it. I wore my jacket on my walk in the mornings. That Hugh and Claire still let me walk at all amazed me, since the other little girl disappeared. Alyssa still hadn't been found, and I saw signs stapled to electrical poles pop up next to the missing cat flyers all over town. Jenna's face had been there a few short months ago. Perhaps it was because she was so much younger; my parents didn't seem to connect Alyssa to Jenna.

But a voice in my head nagged me whenever I let myself think about it. It was a pretty strange coincidence that two girls would go missing in our little town only months apart.

The trees were dressed for autumn now, orange and scarlet leaves that appeared almost overnight, turning the town into a postcard. The colder days meant gray skies and drizzling rain, and the insulated feeling returned. My limbs felt heavier, as though I were dragging myself to school and back.

Hell went into annual decoration overdrive. Most of the year, there were a few witches flying into