Remember Me by Christopher Pike Read Free Book Online Page A

he back?"

    "No."

    "Where is he?"

    She looked down, and even in the gloom I could see the lines form on her forehead. "I don't know how to tell you this, Shari."

    "What?"

    "Dan and Beth are still out."

    "So?"

    Amanda took a breath, her hair hanging over the side of her face. "I was walking back when I remembered I'd left my watch by the diving board. I went back to get it. Dan and Beth must have gotten out of the pool. They weren't there.

    But I ..."

    "What?" I demanded as she paused. She glanced up.

    "They were in the Jacuzzi."

    "So?"

    "They were naked."

    "No. How could you tell?"

    "I could tell."

    I swallowed, and my throat wasn't merely dry, it was parched and bleeding, like my soul.
    I have a confession to make. Daniel was a lot better than I've described him. He wasn't just a pretty face. He had style. He was funny. He had done a lot of nice things for me. He had taken me to the prom in a gold-plated Rolls after pinning the biggest corsage of the night on my long white dress. I liked him, I really did like him. And all those doubts I had about him and Beth—deep down inside I knew I was just being paranoid.

    I hated Amanda right then for telling me I had been right all along.

    "What were they doing?" I asked.

    She shook her head. "Nothing."

    "What?" I insisted.

    "They were kissing."

    "And she had her top off?"

    " Yes . "

    "How could you be sure?"

    "I could see, Shari. There was enough light." Amanda shook her head again. "I shouldn't have told you." She started to get up. I grabbed her arm.

    "What else were they doing? Was he fondling her?"

    Amanda broke free of my hold and retreated to the end of the bed, where she stood and looked down on me. "I'm sorry," she said.

    I laughed out loud for a second. "What are you sorry about? She wasn't kissing Jimmy—if you would even care.

    You know he was home when you came over? You could have said hi. I know how much you love him. Anyway, I don't care. Dan can do what he wants. You can do what you want. I ain't going to stop you, sister. The whole world can go to hell for all I care."

    Amanda left. And I cried, alone and to myself.

    The party should have ended when Dan and Beth returned. I should have openly accused them, ignored their pleas of denial and forgiveness, and then stormed off into the night with Jo chasing after me to make sure I was OK. The problem was that when Dan and Beth finally did come through the door together, I was too heartsick to speak, and Jo was still busy entertaining Jeff on the couch. It struck me then that my best friend might actually find reason to celebrate the news of Dan and Beth's passionate public petting.

    The party would have ended if Jo hadn't insisted we talk to the universe after everyone finished dressing. She pulled out her magnet.

    "I read about this technique in a book on Taoism," Jo said, holding up the magnet so that we could all see that it had a brass cap over one end. "It was originally used thousands of years ago to diagnose health problems. It allows you to question the body directly about what's wrong with it."

    "Is it like a Ouija board?" Beth asked wearily. Even I could sympathize with her. Beth was afraid that Jo was going to get out her Ouija board, as she had done at so many parties before. This is not to say that Jo insisted others share her fascination with the occult or that she couldn't sometimes liven up a dead party by invoking a few dead people. It simply meant that Jo never knew when it was getting late.

    "It's similar but different," Jo said.

    "Oh," I said.

    Jo cast me a look that said she knew I wanted to leave but that she also thought we should let the magnet decide when to call it a night. ' 'Why don't I demonstrate it rather than talk about it?" she said.

    "What do you need?" Jeff asked, seemingly interested.

    He had put away his cigarettes and didn't look nearly so fierce in the light as he had in the dark. There were six of us in the room right then—Amanda, Dan, Beth,