Seconds Before Sunrise (The Timely Death Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page B

they were shadows, disappearing into a black vortex of misty ash. When I woke up, I could barely breathe, and I still couldn’t, even though it’d been hours. I was in homeroom, and the dream owned my every thought. My mind was about to burst.
    “You okay?”
    The sudden whisper couldn’t tear me from my thoughts, but I did freeze when I realized who was speaking to me. Eric Welborn.
    “What?” I asked.
    He gestured to the pen in my hands. Ink splattered over my notebook, and I realized I’d been tapping it. I tore the ruined page out. Pieces of paper sprawled across the desk, and I swiped them off. “I’m fine,” I said, but my voice shook.
    “You seem a little jumpy,” he continued.
    We were in study hall, and our teacher was gone. Everyon e was talking, including the guy who’d hardly talked to me since the semester started.
    “How was your summer?” Eric changed the topic. He looked different, more rested, and his stare was concentrated on me.
    “It was good,” I stuttered through my surprise. I wasn’t expecting him to talk to me at all. “It went by too fast.”
    “It did,” he agreed, pushing his long sleeves up. “Go out of town or anything?”
    “No.” I swallowed my nerves. I’d spent most of the summer looking for more information on my biological parents, but I couldn’t even find where they were buried. “Did you?” I followed the script of back-to-school talk.
    “We always stay in town.”
    Our conversation halted, and I turned back to my notebook. As much as I wanted more friends, I wasn’t sure what else to say. He sat next to me, but he didn’t seem to be the socializing type, and I doubted he would talk to me again.
    “That’s really anno ying, you know,” Eric said.
    I glanced back at him. For the second time, he gestured to my hand, and I realized I had done it again. My pen was emptying out on my paper. I sighed, apologized, and flipped the page over. I didn’t need to fill up our desk with ripped up pieces.
    “What’s going o n with you, Jessica?” he asked.
    A blush rose to my cheeks. No one used my full name, but he said it in a way that comforted me. It felt personal.
    “Rough night , I guess.” I pushed my seat back. I would not touch my pen again.
    Eric’s stare relaxed, and the space beneath his eyes smoothed over. “It couldn’t have been that bad,” he spo ke quietly.
    I half-laughed. “I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks.”
    He hesitated. “Nightmares?”
    I gripped the table, unable to look at him. Even my closest friends hadn’t been able to guess. “Yeah.” I fought my embarrassment from crawling over my skin. “I know it sounds childish—”
    “What kind of nightmares?” he interrupted with more questions. “Just curious,” he added.
    I dug my nails into my hands. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk about something I didn’t understand with a stranger.
    “A lot of them,” I finally admitted, feeling the heaviness on my chest lift. Eric was surprisingly easy to talk to.
    “Do they repeat?” he asked.
    “Are you an expert or something?”
    His lip pulled up into a smirk, but he didn’t say anything.
    “They’re a ll different,” I clarified.
    H is smirk faded. I expected for him to respond, but he collected his things, tediously placing each notebook in the order he had taken them out in. He repeated these motions every day, and I knew what they meant − the bell was about to ring.
    “Hope you sleep better,” he said, and the classroom erupted with the shrill ring of our transition bell. He stood up, put on his headphones, and was gone as soon as he had started talking to me.
    I watched him leave , still wondering about the strange conversation. Unlike Robb, I didn’t feel as if Eric judged me. He listened, asked questions, and remained attentive − like we had been friends for years − and I had yearned for a connection with someone ever since school began. I didn’t care that he was Eric Welborn, the social outcast. He