Spirit Legacy by E. E. Holmes Read Free Book Online Page A

same quick little inventory. This time she looked put-out and shook Tia’s hand with a little less enthusiasm.
    Tia seemed to notice none of this. “Nice to meet you, Gabby. Where are you from?”
    “Oh, I’m from Connecticut. I went to an all-girl high school, so I’m thrilled to be going co-ed finally. My boyfriend isn’t though. We’ve broken up like five times since I got accepted here. He’s so jealous.” She rolled her eyes.
    “Oh, um … that’s too bad,” Tia said.
    “Oh, not really. We just keep making up. And anyway, if we do break up for good, it’s not like I can’t find someone else around here,” Gabby whispered, eyeing an upperclassman who was hauling a futon down the hall with his t-shirt sleeves rolled up. “Can you believe some of the guys here?” She winked coquettishly.
    Tia just gaped. She seemed lost for words.
    “Well, I’ll come visit when I’m all unpacked. See you girls later!” Gabby disappeared into her room.
    Tia looked at me blankly, and I grinned at her.
    “Wanna ditch this whole unpacking thing and go scope out some guys?” I asked her, batting my eyelashes. She laughed and we headed back into our room.
    “Well she was … nice,” Tia said. I had a feeling that Tia always gave people the benefit of the doubt, even when that person had removed the doubt so forcibly.
    “Sure,” I agreed. “Be careful, though.”
    “Careful?”
    “She was sizing us up, didn’t you notice?”
    “Sizing … what?”
    “I don’t think Gabby likes competition.” I unfolded a blue pinstripe comforter and tossed it onto her bed. “She thought you were pretty. She wasn’t happy about it.”
    “She thought … oh!” Tia finally caught up. Her olive complexion immediately flushed pink.
    “I wouldn’t worry about it, Tia. I think she’ll get her fair share of attention, don’t you?”
    Truer words were never spoken. There was a line of guys forming, trying to bring boxes to Gabby’s room. Her boyfriend, who looked like a linebacker or something, watched the testosterone parade with a darkening expression. He departed a half an hour later, after a highly audible lovers’ spat. If Gabby had been momentarily worried about competition from me or Tia, her fears should have evaporated by now. She had already created quite a disturbance among the male population.
    Unpacking Tia’s stuff was very different than unpacking mine. To begin with, all of her boxes were carefully labeled with little index cards. When I examined one of the index cards closely, I saw that it listed every item in the box in tiny, precise handwriting. And when I opened the box, everything was either wrapped in tissue paper or fitted in so neatly that I probably could have hurled the box out the window and not disturbed the contents. Everything was coordinated, from her bedspread to her picture frames to her little cup for holding pens and pencils. When we had finally finished, her half of the room looked like it had been staged for a catalogue shoot. She gazed over it with a nod of satisfaction.
    “Now I think what I really need is some stuff for these walls,” Tia said. Her eyes wandered across to my side of the room, where I’d managed to get a bunch of stuff up on my walls around my bed and desk.
    “Oh, wow, Jess, did you draw these?” Tia asked as she walked over to examine my hodgepodge of wall hangings more closely. I’d stuck some of my own drawings up there among the magazine pages and photos and stuff.
    “Yeah, some of them.”
    “Wow! You’re really good! Are you an art major?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    “Well, I can’t even draw stick figures,” she declared. “I’m definitely not going to be providing my own artwork. And these walls are so depressing unless you get something to cover them!”
    “Sounds like you ladies are in need of the poster sale,” a voice answered from the doorway. We both turned to see two guys standing there. One had sandy hair that seemed to prefer to stand