Free Dark Angel; The Chosen; Soulmate by L.J. Smith Page B

focused on the words.
    â€œI heard her mom’s a drunk.”
    They sounded horribly loud and clear to Gillian, standing out against the background noise. She could feel her whole skin tingling with shock and she lost track of the story Kim the Gymnast was telling.
    (Angel—who said that? Was it about me—my mom?) She didn’t dare look behind her.
    â€œâ€”started drinking a few years ago and having these hallucinations—”
    This time the voice was so loud that it cut through the banter of Gillian’s group. Kim stopped in midsentence. Bruce the Athlete’s smile faltered. An awkward silence fell.
    Gillian felt a wave of anger that made her dizzy. (Who said that? I’ll kill them—)
    (Calm down! Calm
down
. That’s not the way to handle it at all.)
    (But—)
    (I said, calm down. Look at your lunch. No, at your
lunch
. Now say—and make your voice absolutely cool—“I really hate rumors, don’t you? I don’t know what kind of people start them.”)
    Gillian breathed twice and obeyed, although her voice wasn’t absolutely cool. It had a little tremor.
    â€œI don’t know either,” a new voice said. Gillian glanced up to see that David was on his feet, his face hard as he surveyed the table behind her as if looking for the person who’d spoken.“But I think they’re pretty sick and they should get a life.”
    There was the cold glint in his eyes that had given him his reputation as a tough guy. Gillian felt as if a hand had steadied her. Gratitude rushed through her—and a longing that made her bite down on her lip.
    â€œI hate rumors, too,” J.Z. Oberlin said in her absent voice. J. Z. the Model was the one who looked like a Calvin Klein ad, breathlessly sexy and rather blank, but right now she seemed oddly focused. “Somebody was putting around the rumor last year that I tried to kill myself. I never did find out who started it.” Her hazy blue-green eyes were narrowed.
    And then everyone was talking about rumors, and people who spread rumors, and what scum they were. The group was rallying around Gillian.
    But it was David who stood up for me first, she thought.
    She had just looked over at him, trying to catch his eye, when she heard the tinkling noise.
    It was almost musical, but the kind of sound that draws attention immediately in a cafeteria. Somebody had broken a glass. Gillian, along with everyone else, glanced around to see who’d done it.
    She couldn’t see anybody. No one had the right expression of dismay, no one was focused on anything definite. Everybody was looking around in search mode.
    Then she heard it again, and two people standing near the cafeteria doors looked down and then up.
    Above the doors, far above, was a semi-circular window in the red brick. As Gillian stared at the window she realized that light was reflecting off it oddly, almost prismatically. There seemed to be crazy rainbows in the glass….
    And something was sparkling down, falling like a few specks of snow. It hit the ground and tinkled, and the people by the door stared at it on the cafeteria floor. They looked puzzled.
    Realization flashed on Gillian. She was on her feet, but the only words that she could find were, “Oh, my God!”
    â€œGet out! It’s all going to go! Get out of there!” It was David, waving at the people under the window. He was running toward them, which was
stupid
, Gillian thought numbly, her heart seeming to stop.
    Other people were shouting. Cory and Amanda and Bruce—and Tanya. Kim the Gymnast was shrieking. And then the window
was
going, chunks of it falling almost poetically, raining and crumbling, shining and crashing. It fell and fell and fell. Gillian felt as if she were watching an avalanche in slow motion.
    At last it was over, and the window was just an arch-shaped hole with jagged teeth clinging to the edges. Glass had flown and bounced and skittered all