Forever Blue by Abby Wilder Read Free Book Online Page B

thought you liked her?" Sienna studied her nails, frowning.
    "I do, mostly, sort of. It's just, I feel like I can't like her too much, or take an interest in the baby because of Mum." Sienna had lost interest, so I changed the conversation to her favourite subject. "Your hair looks good by the way."
    Normally straight, her thick, chocolate-brown hair was curled at the tips, causing it to fall in luscious waves to her shoulders. She flicked a stray strand. "Thanks! It took me hours. I had to get up at, like, six. How'd you get yours so long? Mine never seems to get much longer than this." She held up the ends of her hair.
    "It's called being too lazy and too cheap to go to the hairdresser." I looked down at my own long but drab hair and wondered what Sienna saw. We were alike, but opposites; same height, same age, but in her presence I faded into the background.  I sighed involuntarily. "You get up to much over the weekend?"
    Sienna took off on a rambling description of how her parents had gone out last night and some of Phoenix's friends came over. I listened to how rude and crass they were, how Sienna felt like an underpaid babysitter and how her parents took advantage of her, as we walked to our first class. 'Listened' may not have been the right word. I heard the words that came out of her mouth, I just didn't absorb any of them. I was too busy looking for Judah. I'm not sure why I wanted to find him again, it annoyed me that I was even thinking of him, but I told myself I was curious, nothing more. It would be good to have more than one friend in the school, especially since that only friend was also my cousin.
    At lunch, we took our food out into the courtyard and ate, enjoying the sunshine even though the breeze was cold. Sienna lay back on the steps, her face tipped to the sun and her hair trailing out behind like an auburn bridal train. A few students risked admiring glances, and even though she knew it, she didn't pay them any attention. Even though they had never dated, Sienna only had eyes for one person.
    "Did you see him?" I asked.
    She didn't need to ask who I was talking about and shook her head. "I'm over it. He's not my type, anyway."
    I raised my eyebrows before taking a bite of my apple.
    "I am," she insisted. "How was the cemetery thingy?" She squinted as she popped a grape into her mouth.
    "It was strange." I shrugged. "Good, I guess. Well, you know, as good as it could be."
    The courtyard was crowded. Most students took the option of eating outside as it was the last taste of warm weather. Sleeves and pants were rolled up and skirts hoisted higher as people exposed their limbs to the sun, but Judah was nowhere to be seen.
    "I met a boy," I said after a while.
    "At the cemetery?" Sienna groaned.
    "It wasn't like that."
    She opened one eye. "Was he cute?"
    "I don't know, I guess so," I lied. "He just looked so sad." I'm not sure why I didn't tell her who he was. I wanted to know more about him, but I also wanted to keep him to myself. When he looked at me, he really saw me, but if he saw me next to Sienna, I was afraid I would turn invisible.
    "Yeah, I heard being at a cemetery kind of does that to people." Sienna smirked.
    I shoved the last bite of my sandwich into my mouth and lay beside her, closing myself off to the rest of the world until the bell rang.
    I'm not sure if we would have been friends had I been given the choice, but Sienna never gave me a choice. I was her best friend. Period. And really, it wasn't so bad to be entertained by the drama that was her life, like the story of her romance with Ross. It had always been Ross for Sienna, but he wasn't the type she thought she should be attracted to. He was loutish and didn't bend to her every whim like other boys, so their relationship consisted of a constant tug of war.
    "You want to come to watch the game after school?" she asked.
    "The game?" Sienna was a vicious hockey player, but her games were on Wednesdays, the whole reason I made