Safe and Sound by Lindy Zart Page B

even more alienated than she already was from the kids her age and Bob would just get worse.
      The bell buzzed and Lola wrenched her arm from Rachel’s grasp, ignoring her as she called her name. She rushed down the corridor to Geometry, heart pounding. She couldn’t tell anyone.
                 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    5
     
      Lola thought she might get sick, but she kept walking. T rying not to hurry, trying not to run, she made her way out into the midday sunlit day. S he strode down the steps of the school , intent on putting distance between herself and the build ing before someone noticed her absence.
      The sun was warm on her head and Lola shook off her jacket, shoving it into her backpack as she walked. Old structures boasted of the town’s history and age. Leafy green trees were abundant. The scent of lilacs was heady. Visually i t was a beautiful town.
      Instead of heading into the main part of town, she went toward the edge of it, toward the wooded part.
      Every car that drove by caused her heartbeat to escalate , but none of them stopped. Lola wouldn’t meet the eyes of people she passed on the sidewalk. It seemed to take forever to get to her destination , but really was less than ten minutes.
      She wondered what she was doing. Lola had never skipped school before. It was like some reckless being was shoving itself to the surface and taking over Lola. She felt different from who she was now, but nothing like who she used to be.
      Lola wondered if Jack would be there. She hadn’t seen him anywhere at school. She wondered if his father had hurt him and the thought caused her throat to tighten .
      Grass and dirt beneath her feet, trees all around her, Lola stopped at the clearing. She felt him before she saw him. The air brought the scent of his cologne to Lola. The rock, pale gray and jagged, held no figure. Lola tu rned in a circle, trying to catch a glimpse of the boy.
      “Lola.”
      She whirled around, hair clinging to her lips. Lola pushed the strands away .
      Jack made his way around the rock and toward her. He had on ripped jeans and a white tee shirt ; u nlaced black boots on his feet. Locks of black hair fell over his forehead and his upper lip curled in its derisive way.
      “Miss me?”
      When he was a few short feet away Lola saw the cut in his lip, the bloody slit scabbing over on his left cheekbone . She closed her eyes, feeling sick.

  A cool, light touch on her right eye had her stiffening. Lola opened her eyes to see the tightening around Jack’s, the way his full lips pressed into a thin line. Their eyes met for one charged moment and h is hand dropped .              
      “What a pair we make, huh?” he said, turning away.
      “What happened?” she got out in a voice that sounded rough and unused.
      Jack hopped onto the rock like an agile mountain lion. He crouched there, looking straight ahead. The muscles in his arms and legs were taut and Lola’s body responded , perplexing her .
      She wasn’t attracted to him. Or at least, she didn’t think she was. She shouldn’t be. Not that he wasn’t handsome ; he was. But h is features were hard, cynical, angular , cold . Jack Forrester did not have a sunny disposition. He was nothing Lola had ever thought she’d be attracted to.
      “What’s your favorite kind of food?”
      Lola blinked and looked away from his sinewy form . “I don’t know.”
      “Come on. Everyone’s got one favorite meal. If you had to pick one thing to eat every meal, every day, for the rest of your life, what would it be?”
      What a silly question.
      She didn’t eat much because of her stomach always being upset . Lola used to enjoy food. Maybe a little too much. Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, chocolate chip cookies, French fries, hamburgers, pizza; her mouth watered.
      “Pizza,” she answered definitively.
      Jack shot her a look.