Manifest by Artist Arthur Read Free Book Online Page B

for all this drama.
    Could he read my mind…and did he just say I was cute? Okay, my head is slowly turning back in his direction and I squint my eyes when I look at him. “Don’t try to flirt withme. You have a girlfriend, remember.” Thinking of the other ghost makes my head hurt.
    And there is that smile again. He doesn’t chuckle this time but his dark skin seems to highlight his superwhite teeth. He lifts a hand and rubs his fingers over his chin. The sun catches on his watch and there is a silver glare that almost has me closing my eyes. I’ll admit, if circumstances were different I might definitely try to holla at you. But your foul attitude would probably turn me off.
    Did I have a foul attitude?
    “Whatever.”
    Were you like this where you used to live or did you just get this new personality when you came to Lincoln?
    “How’d you know I just moved here?” He’d only started stalking me in the past week or so.
    Because I’ve lived here all my life and I don’t remember you.
    “Maybe I stayed off your radar. I don’t normally hang with gang members.”
    See that’s the New York in you talking. This is Lincoln, small town, small population. So if a group of guys start hanging out together we’re more like a clique or a crew, which sound better to me than a “gang.”
    “Wait, you’re talking about the guys that sit near the doors in the cafeteria. The ones who all wear the same black-and-red hat?”
    Yeah. He nods. That’s them.
    “They like to get into trouble,” I say, relaying the rumors I’ve heard.
    Yeah, they can be a pretty rebellious bunch.
    “Then why hang out with them?”
    He looks at me funny, then quirks one thick eyebrow upward. I can’t help but smile.
    It’s a long story. But mostly it was because of my brother.
    “Your brother Antoine?”
    We call him Twan. And, yeah, he’s still runnin’ with the crew.
    Ricky doesn’t look too pleased with that idea. “Even after your death he’s still with them? That’s stupid.”
    You don’t know them. It’s not that easy to walk away once you’re in. Besides, where else would he go if he does get out?
    “Is that why they killed you, because you wanted to get out?” It sounds too serious to me. Killing somebody because they didn’t want to hang with you anymore?
    They didn’t kill me, he says solemnly.
    “So who did?”
    That’s what I want you to find out.

eight
    So last night instead of seeing more spirits or dreaming of being in the graveyard with more dead people, I dreamt of Ricky. In the real sense, I mean. He was living and breathing and he was my boyfriend. We were sitting by the creek in the park, just like we had yesterday. He held my hand, touched my cheek, then he kissed me.
    It is at that point I wake up. My body is hot all over, even though I’d long since kicked the covers off me. My hand instantly goes to my lips as I remember the kiss in my dream. Then I remember Ricky was also in my dream, alive. Which is damn simple of me since I know for a fact that Ricky is dead.
    So I still haven’t been kissed and I’m crushing on a dead boy.
    No way, no how.
    As I head for school I’m determined to keep Ricky Watson out of sight and definitely out of mind. If I’m craving a kiss, or a boyfriend for that matter, I’d just as soon find somebody with a change of clothes…and a pulse.
    “I called you yesterday,” Franklin says, coming up beside me with a smile that I admit is cute but kind of silly.
    No way is anybody that happy all the time. I justslammed my locker door shut and there he was, appearing as if by magic or fate.
    “My battery was dead,” I say automatically, not real sure why I am lying.
    He nods as if he believes me. Today he’s wearing jeans, dark blue, that are too long and rest on his white shellhead sneakers. His shirt is polo, sky blue, the horse on his left side is yellow. He smells good. Probably using some of his father’s cologne because he smells older, like a boy trying to be a