No Place Like Homecoming, Dallen, Maggie [beach read book .TXT] 📗

left, and look how that had turned out. And then she’d said she’d have me back before the week was over, and here I was on day three with no flight home in sight.

“I love you, sweetie.” My mom had adopted her most sugar-coated voice and I rolled my eyes.

“Love you too,” I muttered.

“Keep your chin up, hon. This won’t be forever.”

“Yeah, okay.” I turned off the phone and reached for my bag. It wouldn’t be forever. It wouldn’t even be a month.

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride?” my aunt called from the kitchen as I headed toward the front door.

I paused in the doorway to see her still sitting there with her cat on her lap and a coffee mug in her hand. “Careful, Aunt Lucy, you’re coming dangerously close to fretting.”

Her lips quirked up in a grudging smile. “I don’t fret. I nag. There’s a difference.”

“Uh huh.” I laughed as I headed toward the door. “Well, you won’t have to do either soon enough. I’ll be out of here.”

“Don’t rush on my account,” she called after me in a sing-song voice.

I let the door snap shut behind me and wrapped my sweater closer around myself as I headed toward the main street leading to the school. It would no doubt warm up as the day went on, but the morning air held a chill as I walked the frighteningly empty sidewalks.

I understood that not every town could be as overcrowded as Manhattan, but these deserted streets looked like something out of a zombie apocalypse.

I turned a corner and the school was impossible to miss. The closer I got, the more people I saw. Cars were pulling into the parking lot as I crossed the street, and small clusters of teenagers were piling in through the front door.

I passed through the parking lot and was surrounded by people calling out to one another in greeting. It was all so very wholesome. Everyone knew everyone, and the way they were dressed and the cars they drove made me feel like I was on the set of some primetime sitcom filled with white picket fences and an annoying laugh track.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I just knew it would be a text from Taylor.

At least Taylor missed me.

The moment I stepped through the doors of Lindale High, one of my lifelong dreams came true. I finally knew what it meant to be a celebrity.

The stares, the whispers…the stares.

Holy crap, people. Hadn’t anyone in this town learned the art of subtlety?

Apparently not. But whatever. I didn’t care. Let them stare, right? I had nothing to hide.

I got my class schedule, then half-listened to some dweeb named Spencer as he gave me the official tour of the school. As if I could get lost in this school, which basically consisted of four major hallways that linked together to make a big square.

It wasn’t exactly rocket science to find my way to my first class.

“There you are!” Callie caught up with me after my second class. I almost didn’t recognize her without the wig and the makeup, but that big smile was hard to mistake.

“Hey,” I said as she fell into step beside me.

“How’s your first day going?” she asked.

I shrugged. “Is there a word that accurately sums up boring and depressing, but also with a hint of underwhelmed?”

She laughed. “I’ll ask Willow. She aced the SATs. I bet she knows the vocab word for that.”

I smiled for the first time all morning. It was kind of hard not to smile around Callie, and it didn’t take me long to realize I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Walking next to her was like walking beside someone handing out candy or money or something. Everyone heading toward us suddenly smiled. People walking past said hello.

I went from being the object of silent scrutiny to the sidekick of Lindale’s most popular sweetheart. Nerds, jocks, weirdos with face piercings and tattoos–they all nodded and smiled at the bubbly little pixie at my side.

We passed a group of pretty girls. The kind of girls who actually possessed some sense of fashion. Cheerleaders, most likely. A tall blonde in the middle cut us a killer look as we passed, but of course Callie gave her a bright smile and a wave. “That’s Savannah.”

I nodded. “Ah. The famous Savannah I heard so much about the other night.”

“Yeah, she’s the lead princess now,” Callie said.

“I love that you managed to say that so seriously,” I said. “Lead princess?” I shook my head. “So lame.”

She laughed. “Maybe. But it’s the best money you can get in this town while still in high school.”

I sighed. I shouldn’t need money. I didn’t need money. And I wanted to be a ‘princess’ even less.

Once we passed Savannah and her mean-girl crew, Callie turned to me to explain. “Savannah’s actually pretty nice, she just doesn’t really hang out with us at school, you know?”

I arched my brows. I could imagine.

“Willow’s the same,” she said. “And Flynn, actually, now that I think about it.”

I tried not to flinch at the mention of the hottie who’d laughed at me like I was a freakin’ joke the other day.

“We all kind of do our own thing at school and outside of work, but it’s a good group. They'll have your back.”

I forced a smile. Have my back against what? No clue. Did I care? Not even a little.

I wouldn’t be here long enough to find out.

I’d be back home where I belonged any day now. This was basically my new mantra. It was the only way I could survive this nightmare. The call with my mom this morning had only left me more on edge, though. I mean, she’d been saying the same thing for weeks. And while I wouldn’t exactly say my mom was a liar, she definitely knew how to spin a story.

She’d married rich—AKA, my dad—but if she hadn’t gone the charity route, she would have made a killer