Chosen (9 page)

Maybe if I slept, I remembered reasoning, the fear would disappear.

But I didn't go home. Instead, I spent a night in the hospital.
“For observation.” The doctors were worried about possible head trauma. I
was released the next day with clearance to ride again as soon as my body felt
ready.

I barely spoke the next week. Whenever Mom and Dad
brought up riding, I made up excuse after excuse.

Too much homework.

I was still sore.

Skyblue probably needed more of a break.

But it wasn't Skyblue—it was me.

The accident had shaken me to my bones. My invincibility was gone. But
every night in the Brooklyn apartment, the accident replayed over and over in my
head—Skyblue balking and my flying like a rag doll over his head, crashing hard to
the ground.

I wasn't scared to ride, but jumping was a different story. It
didn't sound like something I wanted to do for a
long
time. Cross-country and
stadium jumping, though, were part of three-day eventing. And if I wanted to be part of
the team, I knew I'd have to do all three. Dressage alone wasn't an
option.

I knew I'd have to make a decision.

I YANKED MYSELF OUT OF MY MEMORY
-slash-daydream and looked at the clock. Forty-five minutes before Taylor's dad was supposed to arrive to pick me up.

I hopped off my bed and dashed into the bathroom. I hovered close enough to the mirror to fog it with my breath. I examined my pale skin for any imperfections that may have popped up since I'd last checked the mirror.

Lucky for my date, nothing but pale skin and a faint spray of half a dozen freckles on each cheek.

I pulled out my black crushed-velvet vanity chair with a cushy seat and sat in front of my makeup counter. I turned on the makeup lights, unfurling my three-way mirror. It had three different settings—daytime, school (fluorescent lights), and night.

I set it on night and grabbed my CoverGirl foundation—the lightest shade they made, called “porcelain.” My makeup was a soft, feminine mix of designer and drugstore brands. Becca teased me for it, but I did my makeup the same exact way every time. First, I laid it all out in order of application. I smoothed an ultra-thin layer of foundation on my forehead, cheeks, and chin, followed by concealer dabbed under my eyes.

Next, I picked up my wide snow-white Clinique brush and ran it over my shimmery peach Nars blush and dusted a hint of color over my cheekbones, nose, and chin. I lined my eyes—a superfine line—with MAC's Smolder.

In the glass jar hand-painted with pretty swirls, I picked out my expert MAC eye shadow brush. I dabbed it in light-colored shimmer eye shadow and used the brush to dust it across my lids. A darker shade of brown closer to my lash line defined my eyes. For eyelashes, I used a trick I'd read in a fashion magazine: I blasted my eyelash curler with warm air from my hairdryer for a few seconds. Then, I clamped the curler on my lashes. The heat from the hairdryer would help hold the curl longer. After a coat of waterproof Maybelline brown-black mascara, my eyes were done.

Finally, I dusted loose powder across my T-zone and
applied a coat of Sephora's Forever Pink gloss. I inspected the tube—three-fourths of the way gone—and made a note on my light blue Kate Spade mini-notepad to pick up a new one ASAP. It was one of my staples: a barely there pink with lots of light-catching flecks of shimmer. In other words,
la glose parfait
(aka perfect gloss) for my Friday night movie date with Tay.

Next stop: hair. I stood in front of the antique floor-length mirror in the corner of my room. The girl inside the chipped ivory frame needed straight hair tonight. I wanted zero waves, not even beauty curl. I plugged in my ceramic flatiron, which took only seconds to heat. I sprayed my hair with a dewy mist of Bumble and bumble Prep to protect it from heat damage, then clipped it up into sections. Twenty minutes later, my hair was down and straight, without being too straight.

It looked shiny and smooth. By now, I'd perfected the art of a good flat iron. The secret was to lift straight up rather than pull down. I'd finally learned the right way in Union. It gave my hair natural body without being poofy. Pulling straight down made hair look limp and lifeless. It was one of the EBTs (essential beauty tricks) that Ana, Brielle, and I swapped on a regular basis. I rubbed my fingers through my smoother,
straight hair, spreading a lightly perfumed shine serum throughout.

In record time, I dressed and now it was time to accessorize. I grabbed a long silver delicate chain that held an oversized locket. I grabbed another necklace to layer with it. The locket was an antique-looking heart and the other was chunkier and made up of dozens of shiny, black hematite stones, with smaller, matte balls in between each stone. I knotted the hematite necklace with the locket so the layers were at the right spot and they fell perfectly into place.

I redid one last check of hair-slash-makeup, grabbed my distressed silver purse, then calmly headed to the front door. I was right on time and ready to bask in the fluttery feeling I got before every date with Taylor. A movie and dinner sounded perfect and was exactly the type of thing I was in the mood for.

Tonight any thoughts about getting into Canterwood (or not), studying for classes, competitive riding, and dressage technique would all have to be put on pause.

My phone blinked and it was a mention of my name on Chatter by “TFrost,” Tay.

Happy 2 be going out w @LaurBell! 6:55 p.m
.

I typed a quick reply.
@TFrost See you soon! ♥ 6:56 p.m
.

“Mom!” I called. “Taylor's dad will be here in two seconds.”

Mom appeared around the corner. She eyed my outfit, doing her Mom-slash-lawyer daughter-scan for anything inappropriate. Her smile told me that whatever test she'd just given me, I'd passed. I blew her a kiss and headed for the door.

“Remember to check in with us throughout the night, especially if your plans change,” Mom said. “Be home by curfew.”

“I will. We're just going to see a movie and grabbing food after. I'll text you after the movie.”

Even though I'd never been grounded in my life, my mom was still a lawyer and it made her feel better to have set family rules like my nine-thirty curfew. I'd never broken her rules the way Charlotte had, but I didn't mind them if it made her feel better about things like movie dates and slumber parties with the besties.

Mom nodded. “Sounds good. Lauren?”

I turned to face her.

“Have fun,” she said.

I smiled, waved good-bye, and walked onto the front porch. I was just about to sit on the porch swing when Taylor's parents' Suburban pulled into our driveway.

I slid my keyboard-locked BlackBerry into my purse and walked down the sidewalk to their SUV. I tried my best not to rush—I didn't want to seem overeager and held my back straight.

I hoped that the car's headlights caught some of the shimmer I'd carefully applied. I wanted to impress Taylor tonight, of course, but even more than that, I wanted to feel
pretty
.

I didn't usually obsess over my looks, but felt okay to be a stylish girl that anyone would be proud to go out with tonight. And, for some reason, I
felt
pretty. Not like a competitive equestrian on the verge of finding out life-changing news, or an organized honors student who kept a neat closet and turned her homework in early. Just a pretty, carefree girl, out with her boyfriend on a Friday night.

“Hi, Mr. Frost,” I said, climbing into the backseat of the SUV. Taylor was already seated in the back. His smile widened and he placed a hand briefly over mine.

“You look
great
,” he said low, so only I could hear. I beamed at him, suddenly feeling even prettier and mounted a bashful smile.

“Hello, Lauren,” Mr. Frost said. The guy didn't know how to
not
be formal. Even on a Friday night he wore a
suit and tie. It was like he was on his way to a fancy dinner rather than dropping us off at the movies. “You look very nice tonight, as always,” Mr. Frost told me.

“Thank you for picking me up,” I said. “And thank you.” I smiled at Taylor when I spoke. I didn't want to act too girlfriendy in the car. Especially not in front of Mr. Frost. Plus, even though he'd paid me the exact compliment I'd hoped for, it was in an adult “aren't you cute” way and Taylor's face had reddened at his dad's compliment.

“You're welcome,” Mr. Frost said. He left my driveway and pulled onto the street, navigating the twists and turns out of my neighborhood.

“Hey,” I said softly, finally feeling like I could talk to Taylor without his dad thinking I was rude.

“Hey,” Taylor said, turning in the seat next to me and taking my hand. He held it down so his dad couldn't see. I noticed that he'd put extra effort into making his messy-on-purpose hair look nice. And he wore perfectly broken-in jeans and a nice black button-down I'd never seen before.

“You look really nice, Tay,” I said, adding something else quickly so he couldn't respond. “And I'm excited about the movie. I'm in the mood for something fun—an action flick.”

“I thought you BBM'd me the wrong title by mistake or something,” Taylor said, arching his eyebrows. “Usually, when you pick a movie, it's kind of . . .”

I turned to him, eyebrows raised to match his. “Kind of
what
?” I challenged.

“You know, kind of a chick flick.”

“Oh, puh-lease!” I dropped my jaw in feigned shock.

“The last movie we saw was—”

“A chick flick,” Taylor finished, grinning.

“I don't remember that at all,” I teased. “But even if you are right, which you're not—” I hesitated. “Well, okay, okay. The last one was. But the one before that wasn't.”

Taylor rubbed his thumb across the top of my hand. He winked at me.

“You like?” I asked, giggling. His mock exasperated look made me laugh harder and harder. I hadn't laughed like this in forever.

“There's this epic Spielberg movie coming out next fall,” Taylor said, leaning closer to me. “It's already getting so much buzz and I want to see if we can convince our parents to let us get in line for a midnight showing.”

“I'm in,” I said. “That sounds fun!”

Taylor's blue eyes held my gaze. “And that's why you're my girlfriend. Always game for anything.”

A look passed across his face. If I didn't know him better, I would have said he'd looked sad. But then it was gone. He smiled at me, the strange, unfamiliar expression gone. He pulled out his iPod, eager for me to listen to a new song he'd downloaded.

I tried to concentrate on the song and convince myself I'd imagined the look. Nothing had just happened and, even if it had, it's not like we could talk about it now in front of Tay's dad.

I kept the conversation light for the rest of the ride.

If something was bothering Taylor, he'd tell me once we had more privacy—once we were out of the car and alone together.
But
, I told myself again,
there is probably nothing to even talk about
.

It was my imagination, I was sure of it. Maybe I was just too Type A to let everything be fun and completely stress free. Even when I set out to have a fun night, my brain invented things to worry about.

Everything was perfect. Taylor and I were out on a carefree Friday-night movie date and nothing was going to stop us from enjoying the night.

Right?

ONCE WE GOT OUT OF THE SUV, TAYLOR
started for the theater. I walked beside him, checking to make sure his dad had left.

Before we reached the theater entrance, I put my hand in his, pulling him to a stop and out of the way of people traffic.