Starcrossed (Starcrossed 1)

Helen had to pass by Hector on her way to track. As if pulled by invisible

wires, Hector changed direction and started following her

across the field. He was calling her name under his breath, like he

was singing a song to himself. Helen glanced around desperately

for another person, a witness in case something happened, and

sighed out loud when she saw a few girls headed in her direction.

They looked at how Helen was practically running away from Hector

and stared at her like she had grown horns. Most girls at school

would have run toward Hector if he was smiling at them like that.

All Thursday night, Helen was kept awake by the moaning of the

Furies, as though one of the Delos kids were near. On Friday,

Helen had to get up at dawn to drive Kate and Jerry to the airport.

They were flying to Boston to attend a small-business owners? conference

for the weekend, and Helen was looking forward to a few

days on her own. Between the lack of sleep and the daily harassment,

Helen felt ground down to bare bone. All she had to do was

make it through one more day at school and then she could crawl

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into bed and hide until Monday. Maybe, eventually, she would

even be able to fall asleep.

Unfortunately, what she thought was the Friday Finish Line was

actually a trip wire, as she found out when she got to school. At

first she didn?t understand why she was getting bumped into so

much, and assumed it had to be some new trend that she had

missed, until Claire began yelling at everyone to back off. Then

Helen started to listen to what everyone was saying when they

bumped into her.

People she had never even spoken to were whispering ?bitch? and

?slut? as they passed her in the hallway. The whole day brought

one insult after another. Three separate times Helen had to run into