Page 1 of Finding Her
CHAPTER 1
poppy
When my parentsdropped me off at boarding school for the first time, my mom squeezed me tight and told me not to have too much fun. My sister, Ivy, pulled her off me and told her not to worry, though when she hugged me, she whispered that she wouldn’t tell them about me having fun with boys and going to parties.
But I wasn’t going for the boys or the parties or even the cute uniform. Sure, all of those were benefits, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t interested in any of them, but there was one thing I wanted above all else by coming here.
A friend.
Maybe it was super cheesy, but it was true. Moving five times in twelve years meant that I hadn’t gotten the chance to settle down anywhere. I’d made plenty of friends, but never abestfriend. Never someone who got the chance to really know me or liked me enough to keep in touch after I inevitably moved away. But boarding school could be my chance to actually get to stay in one place and make a mark.
The first year had been everything I’d been dreaming of. I got along well with my roommate, I aced my classes, and my parentspromised me that they wouldn’t change their minds about me staying here until graduation.
The second year, however…
I screamed as ice cold water hit my face. As I rolled over to avoid another attack, I went from having a solid mattress under me to just air. I was weightless only for a second before I slammed onto the wooden floor. I groaned as I opened my eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning. When it did, I found bright blue eyes staring back into mine.
“Get up,” Lilah said with a smirk. She crushed the empty water bottle in her hand. “It’s the first day and you’re already late.”
My second year at Hartwell Academy was proving to me that having a best friend wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
CHAPTER 2
poppy
“I can thinkof ten better ways you could have woken me up,” I huffed out breathlessly. I tried to keep up with Lilah’s run, while also tying my hair in a braid and my backpack slamming into my side with every step. With how rushed I’d been this morning, I wasn’t even sure if I had the right textbooks or if I’d put my uniform on correctly, but there was no time to worry about it now. No, all I could worry about now was getting enough air in my lungs.
“Probably,” Lilah said jovially, sounding remarkably like she wasn’t dying at our all-out sprint. Which wasn’t fair, because she wasn’t even on a sports team or anything. “But you didn’t pick me as your roommate to be nice to you.”
“I didn’t pick you to be my roommate at all,” I reminded her. “You bribed the administration to make us roommates without asking me.”
Okay, I couldn’t prove that she bribed them, but I sure as heck knew that I hadn’t requested her as a roommate and I didn’t think they took one-sided requests into account when making the dorm assignments. I would have been happy to keep living with my roommate from last year, but when Lilah wantedsomething, she got it. And right now, what she wanted was for us to be best friends.
“Just think about it,” she’d said, when we met for the first time last spring. I’d seen her around school before that, but never knew who she was. Not until I went over to my sister’s boyfriend’s house and found Lilah there with her brother, who was apparently his bandmate. “We’re practically sisters in law!”
I still didn’t totally follow her logic on that one, but there was no arguing with her. Which was exactly what I’d had to explain to Saylor, my old roommate, when we found out we were living with other people this year. I was already missing Saylor and her easy-to-live-with attitude. In the whole ten months we’d lived together, we hadn’t argued once, and she definitely never dumped ice water on my head.
Lilah and I had only been living together for two days at this point, and already I was starting to question how exactly we were gonna make it work for the year. I couldn’t be woken up like this every morning. I did have a bad habit of turning off my alarm in my sleep, but I didn’t expect Lilah to take matters into her own hands. Maybe, once we weren’t running to class, we could make some roommate rules. Something that included “Do not dump water on your friend’s head in the morning unless she is really, really not waking up to any other method.” Or would it be better for me not to go to school altogether if it meant not being drowned in the morning? I’d have to think that one over.
Lilah skidded to a stop in front of the cafeteria, and I stopped with her even though I didn’t want breakfast and definitely didn’t have time to stop for it. Honestly, I just needed a minute to catch my breath, so I bent over, letting my hands fall to my knees, and then gasped in and out, waiting for her to come back out with her coffee. The cramp in my side was becoming worse with every step and I didn’t need a mirror to tell me my face was bright red. I probably looked super sweaty too since I didn’t evenhave time to dry my face before Lilah and I came running out of the dorms. At least my first class was gym—I could just tell everyone I was warming up.
That wouldn’t make me look totally pathetic, right?
“Okay, got it!” Lilah said as she came back out, coffee in hand. She started down the way again, and I took a deep breath, hating the way that my whole body felt like it was on fire, then followed her. I was practically stumbling now. Maybe I should get a bike. Could I bike around campus? I wasn’t sure if that was actually allowed or not, but if it was, I definitely should. Or rollerblades—there’s another idea. I used to be great at using those. Or those wheelie shoes.So many options.
I didn’t know how Lilah could run this fast while carrying a cup of coffee, but she was managing it with no trouble while I was barely keeping myself standing. When she split off down the other path to head for the classrooms, while I headed for the gym, I swear she sprinted so fast that I almost couldn’t see her.
When I walked inside and saw on the wall clock that I only had thirty seconds to be ready and standing in the gym, I knew there was no chance of me being on time anyway, so I slowed to a light jog. No use in wasting all my energy.
I clipped a corner as I swung into the locker room, dropped my bags in the first open locker I saw, and pulled on my gym uniform in record time. I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped into the gym and found everyone just milling about, waiting for the class to start.
As if she’d been waiting for me to appear, the gym teacher chose that moment to clap her hands, bringing everyone’s eyes to her.
“Hello, everyone,” she called. The various conversations going on around the room slowly faded as everyone turned to look at her. “I’m Mrs. Dixon. Welcome to freshman gym.”
Yeah, I was in a freshman gym class—yippee for me. I’d moved around so much that some classes had slipped through the cracks, including my second gym credit. There were no junior year classes that could fill the credit and there was no space in any of the sophomore classes, which left me here, taking freshman gym again. I was sure everyone here could tell that I was two years older than them and were probably thinking I failed gym class somehow and had to retake. It’s what I would assume if I was them, at least. How nice and embarrassing for me.
Mrs. Dixon continued, “Now that almost everybody’s here?—”
