Read Delia's Heart for Free Online Page A

anything, understand? I’m warning you,” she threatened. “I don’t like you being here, and I don’t want you to embarrass me.”
    I pulled my wrist out of her grip, but said nothing.
    Those early days were very difficult for me, and on more than one occasion, I considered quitting, but gradually, I made more friends and became more and more comfortable, especially with my teachers. Before the first year ended, I was on the honor roll and cited at a school function as the transfer student who had made the most improvement of anyone with language disadvantages. They meant in the history of the school, too. My aunt accepted the congratulations as if it had all been her idea. Sophia was burning up with so much jealousy one of my friends, Parker Morgan, suggested we spray her with one of the school’s fire extinguishers.
    On this particular day, Parker, Katelynn Nickles, Colleen McDermott, and I had just begun eating ourlunch and talking excitedly about Danielle Johnson’s party, when Christian approached with his tray of food and asked if he could sit with us. Since he had not shown interest in any of the other three, they all looked at me as if it was to be my decision. Whether I liked it or not, I had to be the one to say yes or no.
    “Yes, of course,” I said. “Only you will be bored. We were just talking about dresses and shoes.”
    “Oh, I’m very interested in dresses and shoes,” he said, slipping into the seat beside me. “I’m something of an expert on them. Just ask me anything.”
    He smiled at me and started to eat.
    “Oh? What do you think of kimono-sleeve dresses?” I asked, looking at the other girls.
    He pretended to give it serious thought, which only titillated the other three.
    “Well…if I were a girl,” he said, “I’d worry about the elbows. Most girls don’t know it,” he continued, leaning in as if he were going to impart a great secret, “but boys get turned on by elbows.”
    Everyone laughed. I couldn’t help being amused, either. He turned those devastatingly beautiful eyes on me. I felt like someone trying to climb out of a grease pit. The more effort I made to ignore and avoid him, the more I went in the opposite direction.
    “Anything you wear is going to look good on you, Delia. Don’t worry about it.”
    I saw how my girlfriends’ eyes widened with surprise and jealousy. They exchanged quick glances. I blushed and ate my sandwich. Across the cafeteria, Sophia stared with a look of absolute amazement on her face. She whispered something to Alisha, and then all of them turned our way.
    Edward hadn’t been wrong about why I should attend the private school instead of public school when I had returned from running away. Although the students here knew what had happened to Bradley and what had happened to Edward, of course, they didn’t know much about my involvement and certainly nothing about my flight through the desert with Ignacio. One of the conditions my aunt had set down for my attending the private school was that I was never, ever to talk about the events with anyone at the school.
    Of course, Sophia was warned as well, but her friends knew it all, and keeping them silent about it was not as easy. Up until now, Sophia had managed to keep them in tow, but I was always worried that one day, someone like Fani or Fani herself would step up beside me in the hallway and say, “So, I just heard you were raped, and that was what started all the trouble.”
    It wasn’t any different here from anywhere else. The victim never stopped being a victim and never lost the stain on her image. That was another irony I didn’t understand. Boys would easily go out with girls who were loose with their own bodies but would hesitate about going out with a girl who was raped. I had seen that in Mexico and knew the same was true here.
    Wasn’t it enough that I carried the dark memory forever? Why did they have to add to the tragedy?
    When the bell rang to go back to our classes,