Free The Wright Brother by Marie Hall Page A

vision began to shimmer.
    Staring back at her was an image of her face. It was a charcoal sketch. Nothing but black and grays, and yet life had been breathed into the picture. Her eyes were wide and luminescent, her button nose tilted up just slightly at the tip. A smattering of freckles lined the bridge of it. Her lips were wide, but not too wide. Slightly thinner on the top than the bottom, and he’d even managed to capture the tiny dimple that sometimes dotted her left cheek when she smiled wide. Long strands of hair billowed off like wispy clouds in a strong breeze behind her.
    And she knew there was no way she really looked like that—because the girl staring back at her was breathtakingly soft and lovely, a graceful picture of femininity. Elisa was none of those things. She was an athlete who almost always wore her hair in a sloppy bun, and acted stupid whenever a camera was placed in front of her.
    Her fingers shook as she traced the line of her jaw. He’d drawn this, Julian had drawn this, and then he’d crumpled it up and tossed it away.
    ~*~
    The next morning she was just getting into the car when the Wrights’ door opened and Julian came running out with an anguished look burning in his sea-green eyes. He’d not been careful with what he’d picked.
    His shirt was red, his shorts a glaring shade of neon blue. She recognized the clothes as actually belonging to Roman.
    Neither one of them said anything as he rushed up to her and dragged her into his arms, hugging her as though he meant never to let her go. He smelled like Julian, like clean soap and mint.
    Elisa had clung to his back, wishing for just a moment that things had been different. That either she was only sixteen or he nineteen, that life hadn’t dealt them the cards it had.
    The kiss he’d planted on her cheek had felt full of meaning. Pain. Misery. And love, all of it rolled up in that touch and it made her tremble. Made her want to say words she knew she could never say again.
    His cheeks were wet when he pulled away.
    And when she got into the back seat of her parents’ SUV, she realized hers were, too.

Chapter 6
    College was going smoother than she’d hoped and that summer spent with Julian and the boys was slowly becoming nothing more than a happy but weird memory.
    It was hard sometimes to believe how much had changed in the few months she’d been away from home. She had a boyfriend who she was crazy about, she still hadn’t really decided on a major yet, but there was still time for that.
    All her fears and worries now seemed so silly in retrospect. And her momentary strange attraction to Julian was absolutely gone. Distance had been the best thing for them.
    She did as she’d promised Loribelle and wrote to Julian once a week, updating him on her life, sending him pictures of whatever stupid thing she sometimes did. And while it was hard to judge emotions from words on a screen, she was pretty sure Julian was also over whatever crush he’d had on her. His emails were friendly, and most of the time short. Just a sentence or two. He’d sometimes ask for more pictures, but that was it.
    The day she realized he was over it, she finally told him about Thomas. And just as she’d suspected, he hadn’t seemed all that fazed by it. He’d simply written back a quick, “That’s good. Glad you’re happy,” email and that’d been that.
    Shutting her economics book with a weary sigh, she glanced up at Tom. He still had his nose buried in his anatomy books. He was studying to become a nurse. Something his parents didn’t approve of. They still had the notion that if you were a boy and going into medicine, it was doctorate or nothing. But Thomas was adamantly sticking to his guns and Elisa admired him for it.
    Thomas was a sophomore. They were actually teammates—it was how they’d met. Elisa’s heart had nearly flopped out of her chest the first time she’d seen him come out of the pool. With his shocking red hair and slickly muscled