His note said that he wanted me to go with him to Kimberly Walden’s party on Friday night. He could have come over and asked me himself, since he didn’t seem the note-passing type. But I could have been wrong; maybe he was just being discreet.
I wanted to get a moment alone with him. I gathered my courage and waited outside the cafeteria, preparing myself to finally talk to the boy of my dreams.
He walked out of the school lunchroom surrounded by his friends and a gaggle of giggling girls, some of whom I recognized as Cornelia’s friends.
“Hi Alex,” I said abruptly, as he passed by me standing awkwardly alone in the hall.
He stopped and turned. “Well, hello there.” His boyish charm utterly disarmed me, and I forgot what I was going to say.
He put one hand on the wall beside me, his blond hair flopping into his twinkling cerulean eyes. “So, what’s up?” His voice was soft like a caress.
“Um, I got your note.” I looked down and shifted from one foot to the other. This was the first time I had actually talked to him, and I desperately wanted to make a good impression. Although I knew I wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
He raised his eyebrows, an amused smile forming on his lips. “My note?”
“Yes.” I figured that maybe he didn’t want his friends to know about us yet, so I lowered my voice. “To go to Kimberly’s party on Friday. I just wanted to tell you in person that I would love to go with you.”
To my utter dismay, Alex Carrington laughed at me. “Why would I go to Kimberly’s party with you?”
“But the note?” I spluttered, fishing it out from my scruffy blue knapsack, still confused, while a growing dread started to creep into the depths of my stomach.
Alex took the note from my shaky hand, stopped laughing, and scanned it quickly. Finally, he looked up. “I didn’t write this. I’m sorry, but I don’t even know your name.”
My eyes narrowed as I started to come to terms with what was happening. “Then why did you wink at me during lunch?”
A cold smile curled his lips, revealing his pristine white teeth. “I wink at all the girls, honey. Especially those that look at me the way you were staring at me in the cafeteria.”
“Oh!” My face heated and I fumbled with my backpack as my hands shook harder.
Alex raised his eyebrows, a knowing look in his eyes—confidence born from the knowledge that every girl in school was dying to go out with him. “I thought everyone knew I was going with Cornelia to the party.”
Suddenly raucous laughter erupted behind me. Someone had played a cruel joke. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was. Cornelia and her friends were laughing their heads off at my utter humiliation.
I turned and fled down the school corridor, disappearing into the girls’ bathroom, the dissipating sounds of Cornelia’s evil laughter ringing in my ears. I was never a popular girl in school, but now my already wobbly confidence was crushed beneath Cornelia’s perfectly manicured feet. I would be the school joke, the person everybody whispered about behind their back.
After an hour of crying and feeling sorry for myself, I finally managed to dry my tears and wash my face. I looked in the mirror. My skin was blotchy, and my usually bright green eyes were dull and bloodshot. I had to pull myself together so I could get to my next class.
I dragged myself out of the bathroom and managed to slip into my English class. I sat at the back, where I would not attract undue attention, and tried to listen as Mr. Roberts warbled on about the significance of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, but my mind was elsewhere.
I knew my grades had slipped drastically, and I was working on it, but there were some days when I still could not function properly. I would lie in my bed for hours, thinking about my adoptive parents. They may not have been my birth parents, but they’d cared for me as if I were their real daughter.
My mind was filled with memories that I held on to like a lifeline. Picnics in the park, holidays by the sea, people who actually loved me—and then I would realize that it was gone, that I was all alone and nobody wanted me. And I would cry into my pillow at night, muffling my sobs so that Cornelia would not hear me.
I had long ago given up wondering about my birth parents: who they were and why they gave me up. No one ever had any answers, and soon I stopped asking altogether. But now this recurring dream had begun, and I didn’t know if it was a real memory or just a figment of my imagination. I tried not to think about it, but the mysterious woman in a crimson cloak who held a dagger to my mother’s heart seemed all too real.
I shivered at the thought and clutched the medallion that I wore around my neck, turning it around between my fingers. Besides the clothes on my back, it was all I’d had with me when I was adopted. Shaped like an antique gold coin, the carvings on it were in a script that I did not recognize. But it was my only link to my birth parents, and I never took it off. It was my lucky charm, and although it wasn’t much, having it with me made me feel safe.
“Aurora Darlington,” came the crisp voice of Ms. Holden, the headmistress of my school, jarring me out of my reverie. I looked up. I hadn’t even noticed her come into the classroom.
What had I done now? I wasn’t exactly the best student these days. I knew that. But I had made it a
