Falling From Grace Read Online Free PDF Page A

the best thing I’ve ever done, the best part of me and your mom.   You make it easy to love you; you’re a lot like your mom in that regard.   But while it’s easy to love you, Grace, it’s very difficult to like you.   It’s hard.   You make it so difficult with your expectations, your guilt!”  
    He shook his head, his disappointment clear, and then said quietly — almost too quietly — but not quietly enough, “Perhaps it was best that Graham ended your friendship.   You always expected more from him than he could give you, especially after Mom died.”
    I felt my fingers dig into my thighs under the table and winced; my once numb body had started feeling again.   It was feeling the burn of anger, betrayal, and…pain.   But this time I wasn’t going to let it turn me into a ball of gelatinous Grace.   Instead, I got up, ignoring the outraged expression that crossed over Dad’s face.  
    Déjà vu had me walking upstairs to my room.   But rather than throwing myself on my bed to cry myself senseless again for another two weeks, I grabbed my book bag, tossed in my wallet and my binder, grabbed my MP3 player, and left.
    The clock read twenty past seven.
    I was going to be early to the worst day of my life.

ERI CA

    I stood in a line, invisible while in plain sight like any other day.   Over half of the senior class was either in front or in back of me, all of us clamoring for our class schedules like junkies looking for a fix.   Everyone else who had already endured the wait stood off to the side, comparing classes together.   The typical questions were being passed around: who was in whose class, who would sit next to whom, who was going to be closest to the doors for a ditch day success, and who had free periods.
    All I wanted to know was if Dad had been right.   Would Graham be here?   And if he was, would we be in any classes together?   It was a strong possibility and I didn’t know how I’d be able to handle that.   Seeing him would be difficult enough.   My heart, still nothing more than a cold pile of ashes, did nothing at the thought.
    And then there he was, standing next to a beautiful girl with a halo of blonde hair that hung down her back like a gold curtain.   They had their heads bent towards each other, comparing schedules and laughing, completely oblivious to the icy turmoil that raged within me just a few yards away.   When she looked up at him, he smiled down at her, his hand reaching up to stroke her hair.   His fingers trailed to her waist, and she leaned into him, her arm wrapping around his in return.   I, in turn, felt nothing but the cold September air around me, still warmer than I was on the inside.   But death wasn’t supposed to be warm unless you were heading straight to Hell, right?  
    Well, I was in Hell.   A cold, dead, Graham-holding-onto-a-beautiful-blonde-Erica filled Hell.
    A little cough from behind me alerted me to the fact that I was next; great, caught daydreaming again.   I hurried forward and quickly whispered my name to the registrar whose name I could never remember, despite seeing her every single year for the past four.   The slightly plump woman with the friendly smile was standing outside her office with her folder of senior schedules.   Now, Heath isn’t exactly a large school; our student body is quite small in comparison to some of the surrounding high schools, so comparatively, her task was undoubtedly quite easy.   But she hadn’t heard me — I had to repeat my name, she told me, and so I did, my voice just a decibel higher, and yet still barely louder than a whisper.
    “Oh honey, I know who you are.   You’re Miss Grace Shelley.   My, you’ve matured a great deal over the summer, haven’t you, sweetheart?” she cooed robustly.   She cooed at everyone.   She knew everyone.   It was nothing special to be recognized by the school’s registrar — it was her job.   But why did she have to be so loud?   I could feel