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

Grace will eventually figure it out, then tug on Leo’s arm. “Let’s go,” I say.

And so we do, and as we’re driving away, I realize I may have just gotten Grace into the biggest trouble she’s ever been in.

“I think I just killed my chances of ever being friends with her again,” I tell Leo.

“Maybe she won’t know it was because of us?” he replies, hopeful.

But the next morning as I pull up to the school, Grace is standing next to my usual parking spot, arms folded.

“What is wrong with you, Laura?” she bursts as soon as I’m out of the car.

“Grace, I’m so sorry—”

“Sorry? For getting me grounded for the rest of my life? For showing my mom that she needs to ‘put tighter restrictions on my behavior’?” She makes the air quotations with her fingers. “You got my phone revoked, my car taken away, my entire life ruined!” she practically yells at me.

“How was I supposed to know you were using me as a cover? I just went by there because I wanted to talk to you! Grace, please—”

“You wanted to talk to me? Why, Laura? What do you not understand about the words ‘I’m done,’ huh?”

Leo appears beside me, hands in front of him as if he’s approaching a dangerous animal. “Look, Laura just wanted to make things right, you can’t blame her for this.”

“Oh, so you were in on this too, then?”

“I just wanted us all to be friends again,” Leo tells her.

“Well I already told Laura that we were done, and maybe I should’ve told you the same thing,” she spits.

“And what would you know about being done with someone? How many times have you been ‘done’ with Andy, and still you end up back in the palm of his hand?” Leo fires back, the hurt from her words evident on his face.

“Don’t even go there. You’re just biased because you don’t like him!” Grace attempts to defend herself.

“No, Grace. I’m biased because I’m in love with you!” Leo blurts out, his words knocking the wind out of me. There’s a moment where we all stand there, processing what he said. I watch as Grace’s face freezes in confusion, and Leo’s eyes widen in fear. I look between the two, realization dawning on me. It suddenly makes so much sense. That’s why he insisted on following her to that party at Jet’s Warehouse. Because he cares about her, and he cares enough to take a grounding for her.

We stand there, a triangle of awkwardness, none of us knowing how the conversation took this unexpected turn, none of us knowing how to end it. Then, finally, Grace moves, the anger returning to her expression just before she turns on her heel and walks towards the school building without another word. I turn to Leo.

“I didn—” I start to say, but Leo puts his hand up.

“Just forget about it,” he says, then turns to the school building, too.

I want to catch up to him and say something that will help. I want to figure out how to smooth things over with Grace, too, but I don’t know how to. So instead, I walk slowly to class, sitting down at my new desk away from Grace, and listen to the echoes of Mrs. Andrews’s Biology class for the entire period.

 

 

 

Chapter 13

Later that night, I’ve just curled up in bed and turned the light off when there’s a knock at my window. Three distinct taps. I freeze, my stomach dropping as I jolt up in bed to look towards it, but I relax when I hear an echo of footsteps walking to the window. The sound is from last year, not someone trying to break into my house right now.

I turn my light back on, my curiosity piquing when I hear the window sliding open.

“What do you want?” I hear myself call softly. I get out of bed and creep over to the same spot, opening the window today, too, so that I can hear the echo better.

“You. To come with me,” Maverick’s smiling voice replies from the ground outside.

“Seriously? Right now?”

“Right. Now.”

“But it’s so cold!” And it’s cold tonight, too, a soft breeze sifting through my curtains into the warm, cozy house.

“Problem solved. Catch!” he calls, and I hear the sound of fabric shuffling, then being pulled through the window. I imagine my past self holding one of Maverick’s hoodies—if he even wore hoodies at all. Was it big or small? What did it smell like? What did he smell like?

“You want me to wear this?” my echo deadpans.

“That is kind of the purpose of a jacket.”

“It’s fifty degrees, not negative fifteen. This thing is huge.”

“I didn’t want you to be cold,” Maverick replies simply, and my echo laughs from the window.

“Okay, fine. Give me a minute. I’m not jumping out the window.”

“What, you don’t think I can catch you?”

“I don’t. However, I’m pretty sure this jacket would break my fall,” my echo replies.

Maverick chuckles. “Meet me around back then?”

“Sure.” I hear footsteps retreating, then my window closing. Sneaking out at night to see a boy. What a strangely normal thing for my past self to be doing.

I follow the sounds of my echo moving through the room, then down the stairs. The back door opens, and I race after the noise, grabbing a coat off the rack as I pass it by.

Outside, Maverick’s voice greets me. “Warm enough?”

“I think I’d be sweating even at the north pole.”

“Good. Walk with me?”

“Sure. But only if you tell me what brought this strange guy to my window at nearly eleven in the evening?” The sound of my echo starts to drift away from where I