Beastly: Lindy's Diary Read Online Free PDF Page A

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    I had been wrong to believe no one was awake.
    Someone was, and he was out in the greenhouse. My own room had no window that overlooked it, but
    now that I saw it, I gasped.
    Hundreds of roses—red, yellow, pink, coral, white, even purple—roses climbing on trel ises to the
    ceiling, roses in pots on the ground, lining the walls as hedges, hanging like a bridal veil. This, too,
    persuaded me that I was in a dream. Who had ever seen so many roses in one place?
    In the middle of the greenhouse, a shadow moved.
    Was it him? Adrian?
    I had been avoiding him all these days. Now, I really wanted to see him, but just see him, not talk to him.
    Part of the reason I’d been avoiding him, I realized, was not just fear of what he might do to me, but fear of myself. I was afraid he’d be hideous and, more than that, I feared my reaction to him. I’ve always
    prided myself on being kind, being understanding. But my father had called Adrian a monster, my father,
    who’d seen all kinds of ugliness. What if I cringed when I saw him? What if I cried? What if, like
    Esmeralda in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, I found I simply couldn’t look at him at all? I didn’t want to
    be shallow, cruel. I wanted to be better than the students at Tuttle, who’d looked down on me because I
    didn’t have the right clothes, the right family, the right money. What if I wasn’t?
    Now, though, maybe I could see him without him seeing me. The living room was dark, the greenhouse
    well lit. I stepped forward.
    He had been partially hidden by the roses, but now, as if he knew I was watching, he came into view. He
    was pacing, I realized, and when he stepped out from behind the vines, I could see his face.
    I gasped. My father hadn’t been wrong or crazy or strung out. Adrian was a monster. He looked like no
    one I’d seen outside a movie. At first, I could only see his body.
    He was tall, tall and slim, and if I’d seen him from the back, I’d have assumed he was handsome, but as
    soon as his face became visible from the shadows, I knew he wasn’t.
    Blond hair—fur—covered every inch of his face and what I could see of him. His hands had claws, but
    his face was weirder. The nose, long and wolflike, sloped downward to a mouth with white, fanged teeth.
    The hair on his head had been brushed to shield as much of his face as possible, but it did little good. It was blond and long, and from beneath it, I could see the most beautiful wide, blue eyes. They seemed to
    glow, somehow, from the darkness. They seemed to meet mine.
    I realized he was looking at me. Could he see me staring? Of course not. Yet those blue eyes—oddly
    familiar—seemed to plead with me.
    Again, I backed away. I stumbled across the dark room, half expecting footsteps to pursue me. None
    came. I didn’t see Kendra again, in human or bird form. Not caring how much noise I made, I stumble-ran
    upstairs, slammed and locked my door. I staggered to bed. Only then did I realize I was crying. Not for
    me, not for me, for him. I wanted to hate, not pity Adrian, yet how could I not pity someone who looked
    like him, someone so pathetic and twisted and ruined? What accident could cause such a thing? No
    accident, other than an accident of birth.
    What would it be like to be this way, to have people run from you?
    And yet, his roses were so beautiful. He understands beauty.
    I had seen him. I could look at him now, I thought, without cringing. Part of me still hated him, wanted to hate him for making me pity him. Before, I could live in the world, not knowing that someone like Adrian
    existed, and not somewhere far off, not like the cleft-palate babies you see in magazines, the blind beggars in Slumdog millionaire, but really, in my own neighborhood. I couldn’t ignore him. I pictured the pleading look in those eyes. I had to take pity on him.
    Still, I cried, I cried for him until I fell asleep.
    Or had I always been asleep? I was dreaming, wasn’t I? I looked up and saw Kendra,