Dead Girl Walking by Linda Joy Singleton Page A

girlfriend?” When I complained about this to Alyce, she theorized that I was the clichéd Girl Next Door: admired and liked, but never lusted after.
    Well, sometimes a girl could use a little lust.
    “I was out-of-my-mind worried when I heard you were in the hospital,” he went on, kneeling on the edge of the bed close to me. Ooh, he even smelled nice, like musky aftershave and peppermint.
    Chad Jr. was Leah’s boyfriend—off limits, untouchable, not available.
    Unless you happened to be Leah Montgomery.
    “Can’t you talk?” he asked with deep concern as he knelt at my bedside. “Leah, tell me you’re okay.”
    “Ooo-kay,” I repeated in a daze.
    “You sure? You’re not like yourself.”
    “I … um … I’m not?”
    “You need to get some color in your face and fix your hair.”
    My hand flew to my hair, and I wondered if I could figure out how to style Leah’s hair and apply her makeup. I was the low maintenance type—just a dab of lip-gloss, and a quick brush through my curly hair before I captured it back with a hair clip. Leah’s silky locks hung limply around my shoulders.
    “Still, you look good to me.” Chad leaned closer to me, which made me a little dizzy. “I was going crazy not being able to be with you.”
    “You were?” I asked, breathlessly.
    “All I could think about was you, but your parents wouldn’t tell me anything, except that you had some extreme flu.”
    The flu? Was that the official story? Leah Montgomery will be temporarily absent from life due to illness—a much more acceptable excuse than attempted suicide.
    “When I tried to see you, they wouldn’t let me in. Your father said you were highly contagious, but I figured he was lying, blowing me off because he doesn’t trust me around you.”
    “Should he?”
    He chuckled. “Definitely not.”
    “You don’t seem very dangerous,” I couldn’t resist saying. Immediately I wanted to slap my mouth shut when I realized how flirty that sounded. I knew better—really I did—yet my ridiculous thudding heart drowned out that logical voice in my head. Instead, another voice said that I might not get another chance like this with someone like Chad, so why not have a little fun?
    “Seriously dangerous—at least when I’m with you,” he said with a wicked grin. “That must be why your door was locked. But a lock won’t keep me out.”
    I had a feeling they’d locked the door to keep the “crazy girl” in rather than to keep anyone out. But why spoil this intoxicating moment with awkward details?
    “I’ve missed you so much,” he told me, folding his strong fingers around my hand.
    “Wow … uh … Really?”
    “It’s been hell, not knowing what’s going on with you. But you’re fine now and that’s what matters. Real fine,” he whispered huskily as he stared at me in this intense way. “You make me so crazy.”
    “A good crazy?”
    “Very good. Oh, Leah, I freaked when I heard you were sick, but everything is all right again, now we’re together.”
    Be still my raging hormones. I almost forgot who I really was. Girl-Next-Door types didn’t make guys like Chad crazy. It just didn’t happen in the hierarchy of high school. Not because I’d inherited Dad’s large nose and Mom’s flat chest; it went deeper than appearance. It was a caste system, like where people in other cultures believe they evolved from lowly insects into human beings. In my school caste system, Leah was a goddess, while I was an invisible worker ant.
    So when Chad bent over and kissed me, I didn’t pull away. Whoa baby, he knew what he was doing.
    A kiss from Chad was like eating only one potato chip when you wanted to rip open the whole bag and devour them all. When he pulled away, I was ready to grab him back for more. But then he asked a question that changed everything.
    “Want to get out of here?”
    Instantly, my sanity returned.
    “Out of here? Hell, yes!” I exclaimed, feeling suddenly foolish for going gaga over a