Gillian breathed twice and obeyed, although her voice wasn't absolutely cool. It had a little tremor.
"I don't know either," a new voice said. Gillian glanced up to see that David was on his feet, his face hard as he surveyed the table behind her as if looking for the person who'd spoken. "But I think they're pretty sick and they should get a life."
There was the cold glint in his eyes that had given him his reputation as a tough guy. Gillian felt as if a hand had steadied her. Gratitude rushed through her-and a longing that made her bite down on her lip.
"I hate rumors, too," J.Z. Oberlin said in her absent voice. J. Z. the Model was the one who looked like a Calvin Klein ad, breathlessly sexy and rather blank, but right now she seemed oddly focused.
"Somebody was putting around the rumor last year that I tried to kill myself. I never did find out who started it." Her hazy blue-green eyes were narrowed.
And then everyone was talking about rumors, and people who spread rumors, and what scum they were. The group was rallying around Gillian.
But it was David who stood up for me first, she thought.
She had just looked over at him, trying to catch his eye, when she heard the tinkling noise.
It was almost musical, but the kind of sound that draws attention immediately in a cafeteria. Somebody had broken a glass. Gillian, along with everyone else, glanced around to see who'd done it.
She couldn't see anybody. No one had the right expression of dismay, no one was focused on anything definite. Everybody was looking around in search mode.
Then she heard it again, and two people standing near the cafeteria doors looked down and then up.
Above the doors, far above, was a semi-circular window in the red brick. As Gillian stared at the window she realized that light was reflecting off it oddly, almost prismatically. There seemed to be crazy rainbows in the glass...
And something was sparkling down, falling like a few specks of snow. It hit the ground and tinkled, and the people by the door stared at it on the cafeteria floor. They looked puzzled.
Realization flashed on Gillian. She was on her feet, but the only words that she could find were, "Oh, my God!"
"Get out! It's all going to go! Get out of there!" It was David, waving at the people under the window.
He was running toward them, which was stupid, Gillian thought numbly, her heart seeming to stop.
Other people were shouting. Cory and Amanda and Bruce-and Tanya. Kim the Gymnast was shrieking.
And then the window was going, chunks of it falling almost poetically, raining and crumbling, shining and crashing. It fell and fell and fell. Gillian felt as if she were watching an avalanche in slow motion.
At last it was over, and the window was just an arch-shaped hole with jagged teeth clinging to the edges. Glass had flown and bounced and skittered all over the cafeteria, where it lay like hailstones. And people from tables amazingly distant were examining cuts from ricocheting bits.
But nobody had been directly underneath, and nobody seemed seriously hurt.
(Thanks to David.) Gillian was still numb, but now with relief. (He got them all out of the way in time.
Oh, God, he isn't hurt, is he?)
(He's fine. And what makes you think he did it all alone? Maybe I had some part. I can do that, you
know-put it into people's heads to do things. And they never even know I'm doing it.) Angel's voice sounded almost-well-piqued.
(Huh? You did that? Well, that was really nice of you.) Gillian was watching David across the room, watching Tanya examine his arm, nod, shrug, look around.
He's not hurt. Thank heaven. Gillian felt so relieved it was almost painful.
It was then that it occurred to her to wonder what had happened.
That window-before the glass fell it had looked just like the mirror in her bathroom. Evenly shattered from side to side, spidery cracks over every inch of the surface.
The bathroom mirror had cracked while Tanya was being catty about Gillian's room. Now Gillian remembered the last thing she'd wanted to ask Angel last night. It had been about how the mirror came to do that.
This window ... it had started falling a few minutes after someone insulted Gillian's mother. Nobody had heard it actually break, but it couldn't have happened too long ago.
The small hairs on the back of Gillian's neck stirred and she felt a fluttering inside.
It couldn't be. Angel hadn't even appeared to her yet...
But he'd said he was always with her... An angel wouldn't destroy things... But Angel was a different kind of angel. (Ah, excuse me. Hello? Do you want to share some thoughts with me?)
(Angel!) For the first time since his soft voice had sounded in her ear, Gillian felt a sense ofover-
crowdedness. Of her own lack of privacy. The uneasy fluttering inside her increased. (Angel, I was just-just wondering...) And then the silent words burst out. (Angel, you wouldn't-would you? You
didn't do those things for my sake- "break the mirror and that window-?)
A pause. And then, in her head, riotous laughter. Genuine laughter. Angel was whooping. Finally, the sounds died to mental hiccups. (Me?) Gillian was embarrassed. (I shouldn't have asked. It was just so weird...)
(Yeah, wasn't it.) This time Angel sounded grimly amused. (Well, never mind; you're already late for class. The bell rang five minutes ago.) Gillian coasted through her last two classes in a daze. So much had happened today-she felt as if she'd led a full life between waking up and now.
But the day wasn't over yet.
In her last class, studio art, she once again found herself talking to Daryl the Rich Girl. Daryl was the only one of that crowd that took art or journalism. And in the last minutes before school ended, she regarded Gillian from under drooping eyelashes.
"You know, there are other rumors going around about you. That you and Davey-boy have something going behind Tanya's back. That you meet secretly in the mornings and..." Daryl shrugged, pushing back frosted hair with a hand dripping with rings.
Gillian felt jolted awake. "So?"
"So you really should do something about it. Rumors spread fast, and they grow. I know. You want to either deny them, or"-Daryl's lips .quirked in a smile-"disarm them."
(Oh, yeah? And just how do I do that?)
(Shut up and listen to her, kid. This is one smart cookie.)
"If there're parts that are true, it's usually best to admit those in public. That takes some of the punch out.