Free The Space Between Heartbeats by Melissa Pearl Page B

out the door after Coach Gellar. He shoots one last look in my direction before the door slams shut behind him. And that’s when I realize that unless I want to spend the next hour alone in the boy’s locker room, surrounded by dirty towels and a dripping shower, I’m going to have to walk through the wall.
    With a sigh, I approach the solid wood and tell myself that I’m vapor and this will work.
    “Just do it, Nicole,” I mutter.
    Holding my breath, I shut my eyes and surrender myself to the disorienting feeling of falling through the wall and into the hallway outside. I hope the fact that I’m starting to get the hang of this ghost thing doesn’t mean I’m destined to stay one forever.

CHAPTER TEN
    WEDNESDAY, 3:30 PM
    While Dale is stuck in gym class, I trail after my friends, hoping one of them will drop some helpful piece of information about who I left with, or where I was last seen. But all Amber does in biology is stare at Charlie Watson, who I still can’t believe she spent all of study group making out with. He’s so not her type, it’s actually funny. Penny spends the period secretly texting under her desk while Matt draws pictures of exploding frogs in the margins of his textbook.
    The final bell rings and the room fills with the sound of shuffling pages as students hurry to pack up their things. Mr. Hinkly is stuffing papers into his bag as he walks out the door with everybody else, as desperate to leave at the end of the day as the rest of us.
    As promised, I meet Dale by his locker. He takes his time collecting his stuff, clearly waiting for the halls to empty so he can talk to me. A couple of sophomore girls two lockers down take their sweet time leaving, staring at their phones.
    “According to the Where’s Nicole Poll, eighty-eight percent of voters think she’s run away,” says a dark-haired girl I barely recognize.
    She looks at her friend with the short pixie cut—Emma, I think her name is. “Have you voted yet?”
    “No, I’m about to.” Emma taps at her phone screen. “I’m definitely voting running away.”
    “Drue tweeted that Trent handcuffed her to his bed and left her there.”
    “Either way, good riddance. She always acted like she owned this place,” Emma says, slamming her locker shut.
    I flinch, the words stinging like a slap. I don’t even know these girls and they want me gone.
    Dale scowls at them and the girls notice his angry glare as they saunter past him.
    “What’s your problem?” Emma mutters. “Freak show.”
    “Your friends suck,” Dale says to me as he grabs his bag and throws it over his shoulder.
    “First off, those girls are not my friends. And I’d never let Trent do that to me,” I say hotly.
    “That’s not what I mean. You’re obviously missing and all your friends have done is start a Twitter frenzy!” He points down the hall. “You heard those girls. Drue’s one of your close friends, right? He’s joking that you’re tied to a bed when he should be out there looking for you. How can you hang out with these people? They don’t care about you at all.”
    My eyes burn as I snap back, “That’s the point.”
    Dale’s angry expression disintegrates, replaced with confusion.
    I sigh. “They’re people I have fun with. They don’t dig too deep.” My friends only care what I’m wearing or who I’m dating. They don’t want to know anything about who I really am and that’s just the way I like it. Or used to like it anyway.
    “You know that’s kind of messed up, right?”
    “Yeah, I know,” I admit, my voice sounding distant and small.
    “You okay?” Dale’s deep gaze is kind. I fight the desire to ask him to wrap his arms around me.
    “I’m okay.”
    He tips his head toward the door. “Come on, let’s go.”
    As we move to the entrance, Dale bumps into Adam, whose broad frame takes up most of the doorway. His blonde hair is brushed to the side, making him look like a schoolboy from the fifties. It suits him, though.