Free The Dead Place by Rebecca Drake Page A

argument that followed her parents forbidding her to go out with Damien, but her mother hadn’t been moved.
    “Matt was your age, Grace. And you weren’t really dating.”
    Which showed how little they knew, because she’d kissed Matt Glick in the closet at Emily Neeson’s party, though the quick, wet imprint of his lips against hers had all the romance of a postage stamp. They’d been playing spin the bottle in the family room, all giggling and hush-hush with Emily’s clueless parents just steps away, and someone nudged the bottle after Matt spun it so that it pointed at Grace.
    Kid stuff. She could hardly believe that had been just two years ago. Things were so different since she’d met Damien. Not that it was Damien who made her change. That’s what her parents believed, but it wasn’t true. She was ready for change, thirsting for it, and maybe that was why the universe sent her Damien. Like he was her destiny.
    He liked to talk about things like that, philosophy and stuff. Just because he didn’t go to college didn’t mean he wasn’t smart. Damien was really, really smart. She’d seen his acceptance letter to Princeton, so she knew it was true that he’d gotten in, and so what if once he got there he realized it wasn’t the place for him. Conformists, he’d told her. Conformists and wannabes, all of the students he’d met and most of the professors. “There wasn’t an original idea in the place.”
    She’d told her parents this, thinking that they’d understand, that her mother, of all people, would share that sentiment, but her lips had tightened into a thin line and her father had said, “What a crock of shit.”
    She hadn’t told Damien that, hadn’t told about the other words they’d used, like “posturing” and “insecure.” It wasn’t true, any of it. They didn’t understand Damien and they didn’t want to.
    Grace walked quickly down one hallway, then another, both of them leading to the back of the school and the parking lot adjacent to the playing fields where she’d told Damien she’d meet him. Exiting the school was the easy part. She’d already scoped out the door near the gymnasium that she could use. Second period was good because for some reason no class had gym before third period.
    The door to the gym teacher’s office stood open. Grace peered through the crack and saw Coach Wally Pembroke looking into the file cabinet, his broad back facing the door. She tiptoed past softly enough that she could hear his wheezing. He was supposed to be some sort of legend at Wickfield High. She’d heard other parents tell hers about how great it was that he was still teaching and how these kids were the third generation he’d taught in the town. Like it was some sort of accomplishment just to hobble about shouting, jowly cheeks turning red from the effort. He should be on an oxygen tank.
    At the double doors, Grace shifted her bag and took one last look back down the hall before pressing carefully against the handle and exiting the building. She held the door so it wouldn’t slam closed, before walking quickly along the side of the brick building until she came to a corner where, with any luck, nobody looking out a window would be able to see her. She walked feeling as if there were eyes boring into her, half-expecting someone to call her name before she got as far as the parking lot, but nobody did.
    She headed for a cluster of cars toward the rear, hunkering down between a dusty red pickup and a blue BMW, which just about summed up the differences in the town’s demographics, and slipped off her messenger bag to rest beside her. She wrapped her arms around her legs and tapped the toe of one sneaker against the asphalt. It would take Damien at least an hour and a half to get up here from Manhattan. And that was on a good traffic morning. All you needed was one slowdown and it could turn into a two-hours-plus trip.
    The sound of an engine made her pop up, but it wasn’t Damien’s