Free Never Cry Werewolf by Heather Davis Page A

he have?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”
    “Fine. Take all the fun out of this boring old place,” Jenna said, getting up with her tray. “Maybe you should work on your communication skills, Shelby.”
    “Maybe you should work on your drama addiction, Jenna,” countered Ariel.
    “Maybe you should work on your antisocial tendencies, Ariel,” replied Jenna, flouncing off.
    “She’s guessing,” Ariel said in a bored voice. “Spend enough time at these camps, you start to be able to guess why people are here.”
    I frowned. “My communication skills are fine,” I said.
    “Actually, I had you pegged for defiance issues,” Ariel said with a little smile. “You communicate okay.”
    Bingo. I bit my lower lip. “Well, you’re definitely not antisocial,” I said.
    “I know. I’m shy and misunderstood, but I come from a family of extroverts. That means there must be something defective with me, right?” She laughed it off, but I saw sadness in her eyes.
    “Families suck,” I said.
    Ariel shrugged and twirled the fork in her blue Jell-O. “You want any of this crap?”
    “No. I never eat anything blue.”
    She smiled. “Good rule.”
    We left the table with our trays and dumped the garbage in the trash can.
    “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, but I can’t believe Austin would use drugs. He’s not a partier, from what I remember,” said Ariel.
    “He says the drug is some kind of medicine. Would he lie about something like that?”
    Ariel shrugged. “He doesn’t seem like a liar. He’s totally normal—especially when you compare him to his dad. His dad’s insane or something.”
    We stuck our trays in the pile on the counter and headed out the door.
    “Insane?” I asked.
    Ariel nodded, putting on her sunglasses. “Completely mental. Once, at my parents’ Christmas party, I saw his dad bite the head off a parakeet,” Ariel whispered as we rounded the corner of the dining hall. “A live parakeet.”
    “No way. Eww.”
    “Yep. Crazy old rocker dude.”
    “That’s disgusting.”
    Ariel grimaced at the memory. “Austin thought so, too. He ran out of the party looking like he was totally going to puke.”
    “Why is his dad so crazy?”
    “He’s always been nuts. He’s nothing like Austin.”
    I nodded. “Austin seems so different. Kind of sad, even.”
    Ariel sucked in a breath. “You don’t know, do you?” she said.
    “What?”
    “Austin’s mom died.”
    “She did?” Oh, man. My heart started to beat harder. I hadn’t mentioned my own mom. Usually Page 33
     
    ABC Amber ePub Converter Trial vers ion, http://www.processtext.com/abcepub.html
    people didn’t get it—what it’s like to lose a parent. It’s easier to let them assume my parents are divorced like everyone else’s. I tried to keep my face normal while Ariel went on.
    “She was shot a while ago in some kind of hunting accident in Scotland. At least that’s what my parents told me.”
    A little shiver passed through me. Shot. No wonder Austin had problems.
    “Are you okay?” Ariel asked, raising her sunglasses to scan my face. “You look really white. Like beyond-help-of-bronzer white.”
    I let out the breath I’d been holding. “I’m fine.”
    “It’s shocking, I know. Could you even imagine losing your mom?” Ariel said. “I would freak.”
    I just nodded.
    She said, “Even if you hate your mom, you know, you can’t grow up without her.”
    Yes you can—I wanted to say, but I didn’t. I didn’t need Ariel feeling sorry for me. I didn’t need her making imaginary connections between Austin and me just because we’d lost our moms.
    Lost. Yeah, right. Why do we always say lost when we mean people died on us? Mom was not lost. And I’d spent the last three years trying hard not to lose myself. That’s what really happens when people die—the family left behind loses a part of themselves. A tiny piece. A tiny piece you never get