Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Author:Malinda Lo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Science Fiction, Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues - Homosexuality, Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure - General, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / General
ISBN: 9780316214469
Publisher: Hachette Book Group
Published: 2012-09-18T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

Reese was right. David didn’t hesitate to say yes, and they quickly agreed that he would pick her up first at midnight, and then they would head over to Julian’s. After she texted Julian the details, she took the paint upstairs and looked around her room. She decided to start with the wall next to the door, where the bulletin board hung beside the closet.

As she unhooked the bulletin board to lay it on her bed, a couple of photos that had been stuck beneath others tumbled to the floor. She bent to pick them up. One was of herself with her mom and grandparents at the Marin County Fair when she was thirteen. It startled her to see how young she looked, all braces and awkwardness. The other picture was of her and David after the first debate tournament they had won last winter. They both had giant smiles on their faces, and David was holding up their trophy. She remembered how excited they had been. Afterward they went out with the whole team to IHOP and vowed to win all the way to nationals. Too bad that hadn’t worked out. The memory of how she screwed everything up still hurt, and she forced herself to drop the photos on the bed and ignore the twinge of embarrassment that pinched her.

She spread newspapers on the wooden floor in front of the now blank wall. At the hardware store, she had bought a large can of bittersweet root and two cans of yellow paint. One was called “morning sunrise”; the other, slightly lighter in color, was “downy gold.” She pried open the can of morning sunrise with a flathead screwdriver and unwrapped one of the new brushes, running her fingers over the stiff bristles before dipping it into the paint. She swept the color, glistening and bright, over the blue-gray wall in a curving streak of yellow. A thread of excitement began to hum through her. She felt as if her hand were being guided by instinct, and the more she painted, the closer she came to remembering what was so familiar about that dream.

After most of the wall was covered in morning sunrise, she switched to downy gold, using a clean brush. The bottom layer wasn’t dry yet, so the two colors smeared together. When she saw the new color that created, her stomach lurched. That was it. That was the color of the room in her dream. She painted the lighter yellow all over the wall, mixing it in with the darker shade in quick strokes. When the whole wall was yellow, she knew she was ready to add the red, but she had to wait until the yellow paint dried or else the mixed colors would turn into orange.

Impatient, she went downstairs to make herself a sandwich for lunch. As she ate it in the kitchen, staring out at the backyard, all she could see was the yellow room in her dream. She could picture exactly

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