The Color of Destiny (The Color of Heaven Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and I don’t think she was sick. Do you?”
    I shut my eyes and cupped my forehead in a hand, because I was filled with elation, yet I felt slightly guilty about that. I wanted to jump up and down and dance around my bedroom, but I had to keep it together and tread carefully. Respectfully. Even though Mia hadn’t hesitated about stabbing me in the back, it just wasn’t in me to be disloyal to her. Maybe that was naïve.
    “I don’t know,” I said. “She looked kind of green at supper.”
    “Mm,” he said. “Well, we both knew it wasn’t going to work out. I’m sure she considers the past few weeks a big waste of time.”
    And do you consider it a waste of time? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t put him in that position. Not now. He was behaving like a gentleman, implying that it was Mia’s wish to break up. Maybe it was. The fact that she went after Glenn at all still baffled me, because he was never her type and she told me point blank that she liked Jeremy.
    It occurred to me in that moment that I hadn’t given a single thought to how Jeremy might feel about this, but I wasn’t even sure Jeremy and I were a couple. Sure, he asked me to the dance, but he hadn’t even tried to kiss me. And he wasn’t the one calling me this morning.
    “Yeah,” I said to Glenn. “Let’s go for a drive.”

Chapter Thirteen

    When Glenn picked me up at noon, I still hadn’t set eyes on Mia. She never emerged from her room. I figured she was still sulking about the two guys who weren’t coiled around her pretty little finger, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if she dashed out the door and hopped into Jeremy’s car at any given moment, without any thought to me.
    Not that it mattered. All I cared about was spending the day with Glenn.
    o0o
    We drove to the beach and walked along the rocky shoreline. Though it was late October and the temperature was crisp, the sun was warm on our backs as we picked our way over the smooth round stones.
    Later we sat on two giant boulders and watched the gulls float on the breeze, high above us against the clear blue sky. The tide was out and the water was calm. It was a perfect October day, one of the most memorable days of my life.
    Glenn and I talked for seven hours straight. We talked about music, school, people, and life. He told me about his family—his older brother who was working as a clerk in the accounting department of a pulp and paper mill up north, and his older sister who had gotten married last year. Glenn was the youngest, like me, and he was close to his mother who was a nurse and a saint. His father, however, was an alcoholic and couldn’t hold down a job.
    We talked about our futures and what we wanted to do after high school. Glenn was interested in teaching because he liked the idea of lengthy summer vacations for the rest of his life.
    I told him I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and he said I’d figure it out eventually. Something would happen to me, and a light bulb would go off. I just hadn’t found my calling yet. That was all.
    He was so right about that because something did happen. It’s why I became a paramedic.
    o0o
    After that first day together, Glenn and I were inseparable. I never imagined I could feel so close to another human being. I wanted to be with him every minute of the day. When I was with Glenn, I felt like I was my true self. No one understood me like he did.
    We knew each other’s schedules at school and walked together between classes, and sometimes wrote long letters to each other when we were bored during lectures and the teacher’s back was turned. We held hands after school until the very last minute when it was time to part ways and board different buses. Then we would talk on the phone each night for at least an hour.
    He was my best friend and I trusted him completely. He loved me with his whole heart and I loved him in return with equal measure. Though we were only fifteen and seventeen, ours was a passionate and