Body of Stars by Laura Walter (free ebook reader for iphone TXT) 📕

“The board members had already made up their minds.”

I finally understood what she meant.

“Maybe I can talk to them,” I said, “to show them things are back to normal.”

“It’s too late, Celeste.” My mother crossed the kitchen and put a hand on my arm. “Besides, I don’t need that job. We’ll be fine.”

She was lying, and we both knew it. She’d taken that position for a reason. Not only did we need the money, but she’d been excited about returning to work. I remembered all those clothes she’d bought, how flushed she looked at the prospect of working again.

“I’m sorry.”

She squeezed my arm. “You have nothing to feel sorry for.”

This, too, seemed a lie. But I forced myself to smile at my mother before I returned to my room, where I climbed under the covers again.

I listened to the quiet of the house. My father had left for work once we’d come home from the hospital, and Miles must have gone to school. I lay there and allowed a series of horrifying images to appear in my mind. My brother falling from a bridge. His body crushed in a train collision. Lying still and pale beneath a paramedic pumping at his chest.

I draped an arm over my eyes and pressed down hard. These morbid thoughts could neither save my brother nor help keep the prediction a secret. And yet I carried on as if my betrayal—the greatest lie of my life—might erase what was coming.

*   *   *

Cassandra showed up on my doorstep that afternoon after school let out. She wore a red sundress and carried a blended coffee drink topped with whipped cream. I thought, at first, that the drink was for me. I was about to reach for it when Cassandra lifted the straw to her own lips and took a sip.

“You seem all right,” she said. “But you look older, now that you’re not a changeling anymore.”

“You’re not, either,” I pointed out. Cassandra did seem more adult now that her changeling period was behind her. Her glossy hair was pulled into a complicated braid, and she wore a touch of eyeliner and red lipstick. I felt I’d missed out on years of her life, that she had grown and changed in unimaginable ways.

Once inside, she dumped a heavy backpack on the floor.

“What’s in there?” I asked. Unbelievably, I still thought Cassandra had something for me, as though she could apologize for her part in my abduction by bringing me a gift. Not that Cassandra seemed to consider herself culpable in any way. The fact that she’d been the one to invite me to the party that night, or that she stalked out of Chloe’s office without waiting for me, didn’t seem to weigh on her in the slightest.

“Textbooks,” she said. “My mom signed me up for a study group so I can work through the premed curriculum.”

“You must hate that.”

She shook her head. “I plan to live up to my markings and become a doctor. I’m thinking either cardiology or oncology.”

I felt a pang. It seemed a cruel trick that Cassandra had a career to pursue while I had nothing. If I tried to imagine myself as a psychologist, the image clouded over at once.

Marie arrived next. As soon as I opened the door, she embraced me.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” she said. “I missed you, and I worried about you. I thought about you every minute.” I thanked Marie but could only think that she looked astonishingly young—she still hadn’t changed. She’d remained a girl while Cassandra and I had become women.

I led my friends into the living room. In the time before I’d been taken, we would have gone up to my room, but now I refused to take them upstairs. I worried I’d crawl into bed and look to them as Deirdre had to me after her return.

“I’m doing really well,” I said, though no one had asked. “I don’t remember anything, but that’s for the best anyway. The hospital was strange—I wish you could have visited, but I know that’s not allowed—but maybe it was good, to be there for a few days before coming home. Now I’m ready to go back to school and have everything return to normal.”

I realized I was rambling, so I stopped myself.

“Are you sure coming back to school is a good idea?” Cassandra asked gently.

“I never considered not coming back, to be honest.”

My friends shared a look.

“It’s just that most returned girls don’t reenroll in their old schools,” Marie said. “Deirdre didn’t. It’s too hard. We’ve missed you, and we’d like you to come back to school with us. But we’re worried about you.”

“Well, don’t be. I’m perfectly fine.”

Cassandra shook her head. “Celeste, look at yourself. You’re covered in bruises.”

I glanced down at my arms, which were still marred by faint blotches.

“You said earlier that I looked okay.”

“I was being polite.”

We sat in silence for a few moments. I felt uneasy, like they were judging me.

“Neither of you has any idea what I’ve been through.” My voice edged toward desperation. “You can’t even imagine.”

Marie offered a kind expression. “Then tell us.”

I thought I might cry. “I don’t know how.”

“That’s the problem,” Cassandra said. “You’re all mixed up. That’s why girls don’t come back to school. It makes everyone else uncomfortable. No one wants to be around a girl who’s returned. It’s too strange.”

“So you don’t want to be around me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s what you meant.”

Cassandra looked off to the side. “I feel bad for you.”

“We feel terrible about what’s happened,” Marie amended. “You didn’t deserve it.”

“No one does.” I looked at Cassandra, right into her beautiful face. In that moment, I wasn’t seeing the friend before me but the entirety of my ruin. “You’re lucky you’re not in this same position. You were the one flirting with boys and sneaking out at night.”

As I spoke, I started to feel angry. It was a relief, to feel something so strongly again. It didn’t matter that I