Echoes by Marissa Lete (best books for students to read txt) 📕

seconds later, the black Suburban comes rolling out of the parking garage. It stops at the edge of the road, and I strain to get a glimpse of anything that might set it apart from other vehicles. But it’s just a black Suburban with tinted windows. There are no bumper stickers or anything that makes it unique. It turns down the road, and I’m unable to make out any of the characters on the license plate.

After waiting for a few minutes to make sure it’s gone, I rush to my car, then peel out of the parking garage as fast as I can. The entire drive home, I check and double-check the rearview mirror and scan the roads around me for any sign of the Suburban. At home, I pull my car into the garage next to my mom’s car. Usually, I just leave it in the driveway, but I don’t want to risk anything since my follower seems to know what my car looks like.

And that night, as I’m laying in bed going over everything that’s happened in my head, I hear an echo of my bedroom door opening and then closing. It’s ten o’clock now, four hours after I heard Maverick and I leave on our date. It makes me wonder where we went, what we did. What kinds of things we talked about, what Maverick was like. But more than anything, I wonder how it would be possible for me to go on a date with someone, and then a year later have no memory of it at all.

 

Chapter 9

Over the next couple of days, I don’t hear any more echoes that involve Maverick, but there is an increase in the number of times I hear echoes of my phone buzzing in my room while I’m trying to sleep. It makes me wonder if the texts are between me and Maverick, leading me to the question of why those texts aren’t in my phone still if they ever existed at all.

Luckily, the Halloween-themed dance is getting close, meaning I have Grace to distract me both at school and after it since she still hasn’t completed her costume and insists on me going shopping with her.

“You have to see this, now.” Grace calls to me as I’m sifting through the used shirts, once again at the thrift store we’ve now been to a total of three times to look for costume pieces. I step around the rack, my eyes shifting to the garment she’s holding up.

“Uhh, I didn’t know you were getting married,” I tell her. It’s a wedding dress straight from the ‘80s, complete with extremely poofy shoulders and copious layers of fabric.

She ignores me. “Two words: Zombie. Bride.”

“I thought you were going to be a scarecrow?”

“A girl can change her mind. Come on, I need your help trying it on.”

She needs my help carrying it, too, because when she tries to walk towards the dressing room, half of the dress drags on the floor. I laugh to myself but help her anyway.

“It’s perfect,” she tells me once she has it on.

“Maybe for our moms,” I reply. “But I’d never be caught dead in that dress—even if I was a zombie.”

“Oh don’t worry. I’m going to be making a few alterations,” she assures me. “Tomorrow, when I come over to get ready, you won’t even recognize the dress.”

Except, the next morning, Grace doesn’t show up when she’s supposed to. And an hour later, when I try to call her, she doesn’t answer her phone. I wonder if she’s just caught up trying to figure out how to de-ugly the dress, so I let it go. But as the day drags on, and the hours tick by bringing the time closer and closer to the dance, I start to lose hope. I’ve called four times and sent seven texts, but there’s still no sign of Grace.

I’m in the bathroom, drawing a nose and whiskers on my face with eyeliner when the doorbell rings.

“Finally, I thought—” I begin to say as I open the door, but stop when I realize it’s just Leo. He’s wearing a green turtleneck and pants, a red belt, yellow leg warmers, and what look like ace bandages up and down his arms. I give him a puzzled look.

“Rock Lee? Naruto?” he says with an undertone of “duh.”

I nod, though I have no clue what he’s talking about. “Sorry, the red hair threw me off.”

“Don’t even bring it up. My wig was supposed to arrive yesterday, but that obviously didn’t happen,” he says, frustrated. He steps into the entranceway, closing the door behind him. “Where’s Grace?”

Now it’s my turn to be frustrated. “I don’t know,” I tell him. “I’ve been calling her all day.”

He drops his eyes. “She better not be ditching us.”

A twinge of anger hits as I remember seeing her with Andy in the parking lot a few days ago. I push it down. “Should we wait for her?”

“Maybe for a little bit. She does like to show up fashionably late.”

So we do, and five minutes before the dance is supposed to start, I finally get a text. I hold my phone out so Leo can read it with me.

I’m so sorry. Got caught up trying to fix this dress. Meet you at the dance?

I let out a sigh.

“Typical,” Leo says, then gets up from the couch. “I’ll drive myself, in case you want to ditch early.”

“You’re a saint,” I tell him, pulling out my keys.

When we get to the dance, Grace’s car is nowhere to be found. The parking lot is filling up quickly, groups of people in various colorful costumes making their way into the school’s gym. Reluctantly, I force myself to follow Leo towards it all.

When I step inside, the noise hits me