Dusk (Young Adult Paranormal Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and all the fun things going on! I hope to hear from you soon. Much love, Lea.
    Without replying I closed the message and set my phone on the table. I felt like crap for feeling sorry for myself even the tiniest bit when the kids she saw every day lived in conditions I couldn’t even imagine. I couldn’t write to her and pretend everything was fine. Yet how could I tell her the truth? I didn’t even know what the truth was anymore.
    And the thought of putting it all in words make me sick to my stomach.
    I missed my dad, and yet at the same time part of me was still so angry at him. And I had nowhere to direct that anger, thanks to wet roads, bald tires and a hydroplaning pick-up truck.
    I shook my head in disgust and looked down at my homework. Compared to my messed up emotional state, being clueless in Pre-Cal seemed like a minor annoyance.
    Wrapped up in my own internal drama – and still staring blankly at my textbook – I didn’t hear footsteps approaching. But I did notice the black biker boots that appeared next to the picnic table.
    Adrian.
    “I have Mrs. Faulkner after lunch,” he said, throwing one leg over the bench to sit next to me. “Bet we have the same assignment.”
    “Probably so.” I wondered what in the world he was doing, showing up here on a Friday afternoon.
    “I finished my homework a few minutes ago. Need some help?”
    “Can you read minds?” I was only half joking. Him showing up here just as I was about to throw in the towel on the second day of school was terribly coincidental. But if he was good at math, who was I to argue?
    He shrugged. “Math comes easy.”
    “Where’s your bike?” I asked, still kind of stunned that he’d just appeared.
    “I walked.”
    Okay. He wasn’t very forthcoming with information, but maybe that’s all there was to it. Perhaps he just went out for a walk.
    “You didn’t seem too enthused about Pre-Cal when we talked this morning, so I had a hunch you might need some assistance with the homework.” He scooted closer and picked up my pencil. “And it’s in my nature to be helpful.”
    Over the next hour, I found out that he was telling the truth. Both about math coming easy and about being helpful. And in between working problems, I’d managed to gather a little information about him.
    “You moved from Florida, right?” I asked.
    “No secrets around here, I guess,” he said with a laugh.
    “Not so much. Small town and all.”
    “Yeah, I lived in Florida.”
    “How’d you get here?” Apparently he wasn’t going to volunteer information, but he seemed willing to answer, so I kept asking.
    “My parents are in Hungary.” He pointed to a sample problem he’d worked on my scrap paper. “Now you try the one in the book.”
    I started on the problem, but kept up with the questions. “What are they doing in Hungary?”
    “My dad teaches English as a second language, so he travels a lot. He’s working in Budapest for the next several months.”
    “You didn’t want to go with them?”
    “I’ve been to Europe before,” he said, nudging me and pointing toward the problem in the book. “And I wanted to finish high school in the states. So I came to live with Aunt Maggie.”
    I nodded, figuring his explanation was decent. I got back to work on the problem, and decided to let it go and just get my work done. With his assistance, I not only finished my homework, but also managed to grasp it enough to have at least a basic understanding.
    Homework completed, he had no reason to stick around, and I found myself toying with the idea of asking what he was doing this weekend. But that would be really lame, like I was as desperate as Nikki trying to convince him to go to that party. So I said nothing, even though my weekend with no car keys stretched before me like an eternity… two long days of bored-out-of-my-skull.
    Well, boredom was better than running with Nikki and Courtney.
    Adrian seemed in no hurry to leave even though the homework was