Dreaming Awake Read Online Free PDF

papers. We stood up and I handed him what I had gathered. He stammered some more. “It’s just . . . you’re nice . . . and I . . .”
    “Are you all right, dude?” Donny asked.
    “She’s so pretty,” he replied, his face turning beet red. “I’m so stupid.” And then he ran.
    We all looked at one another, dumbfounded. “Well, that was thirty-one flavors of weird,” Ame said.
    Donny slugged down the rest of her coffee. “I have to get to class. One more tardy and I have Saturday school.” She squeezed my arm as she passed.
    Haden texted me that he would be late, so Amelia and Gabe headed to class and I made my way to the admin office. By the time I got my paperwork signed and in order, the hall was empty but for one other student. I didn’t recognize her at first. Brittany Blakely, one of Haden’s admirers and homecoming queen three years in a row, ambled down the hall like a zombie. Her blond hair, normally bouncy and shiny, hung lankly in a messy ponytail. Instead of her normal cheer uniform or miniskirt, she wore a pair of sweatpants and an oversize T-shirt. Her skin looked sallow, and the dark circles under her eyes made her appear to be hollowing from the inside out.
    She didn’t look at me when we passed each other, which I suppose was no big surprise. The sneetches rarely deigned to notice anyone who was not in their social circle. I don’t know why it bothered me that she hadn’t even looked at me. I’d always been a doormat to the students at Serendipity High. The only time they’d cared was when my disappearance had become a juicy morsel of intrigue. The more I thought about the way she looked, the more satisfaction I felt. Good. She deserved to be sick. I may have been through hell, literally, but at least I didn’t look like it.
    The pattern of light on the opposite wall caught my eye as it became disordered from the shape of the windows. A shadow from nowhere stole across and ate the light, darkening the entire hall for a second. I blinked and a hunger pang began in my center and radiated out through my veins. My mouth filled with saliva and I felt weak. I leaned against the bank of lockers and tried to stop shaking. It wasn’t like the pangs that twist the stomach . . . it came from a deeper place than that. A depth I hadn’t possessed before the curse.
    After I took a few deep breaths, the consuming hunger was gone as quickly as it had come upon me, leaving me breathless and clammy but otherwise back to normal. I splashed water on my face from the drinking fountain and tried to reason away the sense of impending doom that something wasn’t right.
    I leaned against the wall and tried to collect myself. I didn’t really want Brittany to be sick—that was just my petty jealousy. It was only natural to feel jealous from time to time, I rationalized. Other girls said catty things about one another all the time. It didn’t mean I really wished her harm. And the dizzy spell . . . Well, I hadn’t eaten anything before school. I was a bundle of nerves before I had even added the caffeine. That was all.
    Surely, that was all.
    *  *  *
    Looking forward to my trig class was a new experience for me, but it was the only class I had with Amelia, and I needed to see a friendly face.
    She met me outside the door. One look at me and her sunny smile slid into a frown. “You okay?” she asked.
    “Everyone is staring at me. I’m used to them ignoring me, but now they are staring and ignoring.” I hated being the focal point. I preferred the background to the foreground. “Sometimes I hear whispering, but I can’t make out what they’re saying.”
    Ame shrugged. “They’ll get bored soon.”
    “Is my seat still open?” I asked as we entered the room. Our seats weren’t assigned in that class, but in the hierarchy of high school politics, there were still rules about seating. The last thing I needed was to anger someone by taking a chair that no longer belonged to