Free Holly's Heart Collection One by Beverly Lewis Page A

doorway, I spied Andie. She sat curled up in a chair, close to Jared’s hospital bed, like she was monitoring his every breath. He was propped up with a zillion pillows, his right leg supported by a pulley system above the bed.
    Andie looked up at that moment. “Holly!” she said in her most charming voice. “Come right in.”
    I approached the bed just as Jared let out a tiny, high-pitched snort. He was snoring.
    Andie began to explain. “He just had some pain medication.”
    “I know. His mom already told me.” I found another chair and pulled it over next to Andie’s and sat down. A long silence settled over the room. I was boiling inside.
    At last, I blurted out what I was thinking. I just couldn’t hold in my thoughts any longer. “Look, Andie,” I said, leaning toward her. “Jared likes me, I know he does.”
    She crossed her chubby little legs. “Maybe he did once, but this is now, ” she said. “Whatever you had, or thought you had, well, it’s over. You’re history.”
    This was beyond my worst nightmare! Jared interested in Andie?
    He had said he liked tall, skinny girls. Andie was anything but that.
    “I know you’re wrong,” I argued. “You must’ve been dreaming—wishing it were true—when you thought he touched your hand.”
    “Do you want a written statement?” She leaned closer to Jared, her eyes scanning the rings and pulleys that held his fractured leg in place. “He wants me to watch over him while he sleeps.”
    “Oh, puh-lease.” I rolled my eyes. “He doesn’t need mothering, Andie. He’s got a real mother for that.” Then I lit into her. “You’re the poorest excuse I know for a best friend.”
    “What about you? You didn’t back away when you knew how much I liked him, did you?”
    “That’s different,” I managed to say. “He was the first boy to accept me as I am.”
    “You mean skin and bones?”
    A low blow! Something snapped inside me. “That’s it,” I shouted.
    “You’ll never see our Loyalty Papers again.”
    “Whatever!” She fluffed her dark locks. “You don’t know what you’re saying. Your life’s a big, fat zero without me.”
    “That’s what you think,” I growled. “Why don’t you go home and leave me alone with Jared?”
    “If I’m not here when he wakes up—well, I just don’t know what he’d do. We have a very special bond,” she said in her sickening-sweet voice.
    “Well, he must be desperate, then. Just pack up your precious keyboard and get out of here.”
    Mom and Mrs. Wilkins poked their heads in the doorway. Mom looked puzzled. “Is everything all right?”
    “Not really,” I said. “Andie was just leaving.”
    Mom caught on quickly. “Girls, can you solve your problems elsewhere?” Then she motioned to me. I got up reluctantly and started toward her.
    Jared woke up. “I…I heard voices,” he said.
    Andie jumped up to reassure him. “It was nothing. Nothing at all.”
    Jared’s father came in, carrying a white paper cup brimming with hot coffee. He was good-looking, too, with blond hair and a mustache. He pulled a chair over next to the bed. “Thanks, girls, for dropping by to visit our son,” he said.
    “Girls?” Jared said sleepily. “Where?”
    Mom’s firm touch on my arm signaled the end of my visit. “It was nice to meet you,” she said to Jared’s parents. “We’ll be sure to mention Jared during the prayer requests at the service tonight.”
    We smiled and shook hands all around. Then I headed down the hall with my family. Carrie held Mom’s hand, and I moped behind. I felt like picking a fight. With Andie, with Mom—with anyone in sight.
    “What’s come over you?” Mom asked as we drove to church in the snowy stillness.
    I shrugged. “You wouldn’t understand.”
    “Holly?” she said in her warning voice, which meant, You’d better shape up—or else.
    “Don’t you remember?” I said. “It’s all part of becoming a young woman. Isn’t that what you said?”
    “I’ve