The Color Of Grace Read Online Free PDF Page A

knife, inhaling the spicy aroma of my meal.
    “We’re going to miss you too,” Bridget said.
    I peeked an eye up. Bridget, Schy, and Adam hadn’t touched
their meals but were staring at me with sympathetic gazes that made my gut
hurt.
    “It’s not going to be the same without you,” Adam added.
    Schy sniffed out a sound of annoyance. “You can’t leave,
Grace. You just can’t. We should all talk to your mom together, convince her
you need to stay at Hillsburg. That’s just all there is to it.”
    I opened my mouth to argue, but Schy wasn’t finished. “If it
makes her feel better, Adam and I could even offer to come and pick you up in
Osage each morning for school. We’ll take you every day.”
    Bridget nodded vigorously. “That’s a great idea. Adam’s a
really safe driver. Even your mom can’t argue that point.”
    My eyes flooded with tears. “You guys are too wonderful.” I
wiped at the monsoon pouring down my cheeks. “But you can’t do that. Do you
know how much gas it would cost to—”
    “We don’t mind,” Adam said. “Really, Grace. We’re a
foursome. The group can’t be split apart.”
    I moaned out my misery. “I’ll see you as often as I can. And
we’ll talk on the phone, like, every night, and Facebook each other
constantly.”
    Another miserable silence ensued before Bridget spoke.
“There’s only one good thing about this.”
    “What’s that?” I had to ask, though my tone held no semblance
of hope.
    She wiggled her brows. “You’ll get to see Ryder Yates
again.”
    As I blushed, Schy brightened. “That’s right. You have to
tell us everything that happens when you see him. Everything.”
    “You know, I might not see him,” I started logically. “He’s
a senior. There’s no way we’ll have any classes together and—”
    Schy bulldozed right over that idea. “Of course you’ll see
him. Southeast isn’t any bigger than Hillsburg. You’ll probably bump into him
as soon as you enter the school.”
    Next to me, Bridget let out a dreamy sigh. “I just love his
name. Have I mentioned how much I like his name?”
    “Only about a million times,” Adam mumbled, picking up his
cheeseburger and taking a ferocious bite.
    “I like it too,” Schy decided. “It sounds good with Grace.
Ryder and Grace. Should be easy for Adam to make a song for you two when you
hook up.”
    I flushed even more scarlet and opened my mouth to shoot
down that idea, but Bridget chimed in, “Aww. Are you really going to write a
song for them? That’s so sweet.”
    A pickle slipped out the back of Adam’s burger and plopped
onto his plate. His eyes grew as he sat up straight. “Uh…yeah. Sure. I guess I
could.” He glanced toward me. “If you want.”
    “No, I don’t want,” I muttered. “Because we’re not going to hook up .”
    My adamant tone surprised everyone. They pulled back in
their seats with raised eyebrows. I curbed the urge to apologize, but honestly,
I didn’t want to discuss the topic anymore. It still made me intensely
uncomfortable and mortally embarrassed.
    Schy huffed out a disgruntled sniff. “Geesh, Gracie. Deflate
our hopes, why don’t you. I just thought it’d be nice if one of us actually went on a date before we graduated high school.”
    “Yet another stigma society puts on teens,” Bridget spoke
up, “making us think we’re losers if we don’t have a girlfriend or boyfriend by
a certain age. Why can’t we just focus on who we are and what we want to be?”
    Adam, Schy, and I exchanged glances before we burst out
laughing.
    And just like that, things smoothed back to normal. We
laughed, and ate, and gossiped through the rest of the meal.
    Almost two hours later, we finally departed the restaurant.
A freezing wind greeted us as soon as we stepped outside. I pulled my dad’s old
logging coat—as I called it—more snuggly around me.
    I’d taken up wearing it since an afternoon about four weeks
earlier when Mom had packed a box full of memories