Ballad Read Online Free PDF Page A

sidewalk, climbing into the air before spiraling back down to the ground. That was me, always, the invisible shiver at twilight, the intangible lump in the back of your throat, the unbidden tear at thoughts long forgotten.
    As the kids walked past the dorm buildings, the group dwindled to two as the girls disappeared into their dorm. I could get closer then, close enough that the glow of him reflected on my twilight skin and made me want to touch him and pull bright strings of music out of his head. If only he’d said yes.
    James and the remaining boy were talking about vending machines. One of them, a boy whose chief characteristic was an innocent, smiling face, was quoting statistics about how many people get killed by vending machines tipping over on them.
    “I don’t think they pulled the machines onto themselves,” James was saying.
    “They showed video,” the round kid said.
    “No, I think there’s probably an avenging vending machine angel that pushes them onto grabby bastards who are bad sports about losing their money.” James made a pushing motion, a panicked expression, and a squashing sound in quick succession. “Lesson learned, bucko. Next time, just accept that you’ve lost your fifty cents.”
    Round-o: “Except there wouldn’t be a next time.”
    “How right you are. Dying would prohibit one from acting upon the lesson they’d learned. Scratch that. Let the record show that vending machine tragedies are not morality tales but a form of natural selection.”
    Round kid laughed, then looked past James at something. “Hey, man, there’s a chick staring at you.”
    “Is there ever not?” James asked, but he turned to look anyway, past me at someone else. The yellow inside him flashed, twisted, flared toward me as if begging for me to turn it into something else. But his eyes didn’t find me; they instead rested on a pale girl. Black hair, face washed out in the artificial light of a streetlight, fingers plucking anxiously at her backpack strap. There was something missing from James’ voice when he told Round-o, “Hey, I’ll be up in a second, okay? She’s from my old school.”
    Round-head duly dispatched, James made his way through the circles of streetlight to where the girl stood. She had faint threads of orange glow running through her, like neon taffy, making me think that she would’ve made a good pupil if I hadn’t liked mine young, handsome, and male.
    James’ voice was very brave, all funny and strong, even though the thoughts I could catch of his were chaotic. “Hey, crazy, what’s up?”
    She smiled back at him, annoyingly pretty—I didn’t really care for attractive members of my own gender—and made a weird, crumpled, rueful face. Again, annoyingly cute. “Just getting ready to go up to my room. I came over this way because I always, um, never, because I never saw the fountain when it was lit up. And I wanted to.”
    Yeah, whatever. So you came over to see him and don’t want to say it. Right. Stop being coy . I glared at her. James half-cocked his head in my direction, as if listening, and I skirted a few feet away from them. But at my sudden movement, the girl’s eyes lifted abruptly, following me, frowning as if she saw me. Crap. I leaned down as if I was tying my shoe, like I was a real student and I was actually visible to everyone. Her eyes didn’t focus on me after I’d bent down—she couldn’t quite see me. She must have some of the second sight. That annoyed me too.
    “Dee,” James said. “Earth to Dee. Calling planet Dee. Houston, our communication lines seem to be down. Dee, Dee, do you read me?”
    Dee pulled her eyes away from me and back to James. She blinked, hard. “Um. Yes. Sorry about that. I didn’t get enough sleep last night.” She had a very beautiful voice. I thought she must be quite a good singer. I finished fake-tying my shoe and started to walk very slowly toward the fountain, to hide myself in the water. Behind me, I heard James