The Wrong Path - By Vivian Marie Aubin du Paris Page 0,39

as much as he did.

They finished the drive in silence, and before Will could get her bag, she retrieved it herself. “Thanks for the ride,” she snapped, throwing open the door.

“Anytime,” he returned sarcastically.

She slammed the door on him and stalked up to her house. She slammed the front door shut behind her, too, hoping Will would hear it in the street. Then she stormed up to her room, threw her bag on her floor, and sat on her bed, fuming.

And then an overwhelming sadness overcame her, and she buried her head in her pillows to muffle her tears.

Chapter Ten

It had been a bad week.

Claire had ignored her for two days for talking to “losers,” she’d failed both of her tests, she barely saw Trevor because they had stepped up football training, and whenever she and Will saw each other in the hallway they glared at each other.

So even though she wanted to just curl up into a ball on her bed and lay there until she had to get up for school the next morning, on Thursday night she dutifully joined the other girls at Claudia’s house to get ready for the homecoming carnival. They were all wearing black and gold outfits—the school’s colors—and hers was made up of a black mini skirt, a gold tank top, and a black sweater. Claire wrote “09” in black and gold on her cheekbone, Trevor’s jersey number, and Erin had curled her ponytail and wrapped black and gold ribbons around it. The other girls were dressed in similar outfits, and around nine when the boys arrived they were finally ready to go.

She forced herself to laugh along with the others when the boys all failed at being able to ring the bell on the sledgehammer game, and tried to fake enthusiasm when she and Trevor shot water into clown’s mouths to make the balloons behind them explode. He won, and she received a tiny stuffed dog out of the deal.

She was starving, and jealous of all of the people walking around with corndogs and fries. Carnival food was the best tasting food, but even suggesting carnival fries would have earned herself a one-way ticket right out of their group. So instead she just held Trevor’s hand, miserably drinking her watery soda.

Everyone else seemed to be having so much fun it almost made her sick. Just thinking about how long it would be until she could lay down in bed and sleep made her even more exhausted. Why was she the only one who didn’t think Parker making derogatory, sexual comments at Erin was funny? Why was she the only one who didn’t think it was hilarious when Zach tripped into a garbage can and spilled his soda everywhere? Had she always been so boring?

No. It couldn’t be. She used to think her friends were fun. She was just tired. It had been a rough week, and it was catching up with her. As soon as she got a good night’s rest, she would be back to normal.

When Malcolm won a stuffed crocodile at the ring toss game and the girls all started begging for it, offering to trade a kiss for the toy, Annabelle had to excuse herself. She received several stares of disbelief as she headed to the bathroom alone—it was unheard of to go without at least two other girls—but she needed to get some air. She didn’t actually need to use the restroom, she was just exhausted trying to maintain appearances, and no one seemed to notice, or care.

“Annabelle!”

She turned at her name, grinning despite it all when she recognized Ebony. Her briefly uplifted mood quickly soured when she saw Will standing beside her. She frowned at him as their eyes met, meeting his glare head-on.

“Come here!” Ebony called, waving her over. “Will’s about to win me the really big duck.”

Reluctantly, Annabelle headed over, looking down at the large duck Ebony was holding. It was the milk bottle throw… None of the guys in her group had been able to knock down any of them, but apparently Will was faring better.

Annabelle watched as Will drew back the baseball, his eyes focused on the milk bottles, and then sent the ball flying forward, knocking all three down. She gaped at him in disbelief, even as Ebony let out a squeal of delight and handed over the large duck for an even larger duck, bigger around than she was.

“Now get something for Annabelle,” Ebony ordered.

“No, I don’t need anything,” Annabelle assured