Empress of the World by Sara Ryan

Author:Sara Ryan [Ryan, Sara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Lesbian, Contemporary, Romance, Lesbians, young adult, Social Issues, Love & Romance, Juvenile Fiction, Homosexuality, Bisexuality
ISBN: 9781439551462
Google: rfg-PwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1439551464
Publisher: Paw Prints
Published: 2008-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

My headache hasn’t gotten any better. Headaches have been part of my personal cornucopia of PMS symptoms for years, but this one is much worse than normal. It must be stress.

I tried to eat dinner after class, but just the smell of the cafeteria made me gag. Battle made me drink juice so I’d get vitamin C, but that didn’t help. I went to my room, turned off the lights, and pulled down the shades, but that didn’t help either.

I paw through the shoebox of CDs that I brought with me and find Carmina Burana. It’s not the most soothing piece of music in the world, but I love it so much, I think maybe hearing it will make me feel better. Or at least my head may start to throb in time with the percussion. I put the CD into my little boom box and lie back down.

As usual, while I listen, I stare at the picture on the CD cover—a medieval engraving of Fortune’s wheel. Fortune’s wheel has fascinated me since the first time Dad explained it to me—the idea that at any moment, the wheel could turn and a queen could become a peasant, or vice versa.

There’s a knock at my door. When I sit up, my head spins, and when I stand up to walk to the door, I feel like I’m on some alien planet where I’m not used to the gravity.

“Um, hi—I thought you might still not be feeling well,” says Battle. “I brought aspirin—and this.” She holds out a washcloth full of something, with a rubber band around it, I guess to keep the something from spilling. “It’s crushed ice. You, uh, put it on your head.”

“Thank you,” I manage to say, aware that I’m speaking more slowly and softly than usual. “Please come in, I kind of have to lie down again but don’t—I mean, you don’t have to leave.”

Battle steps into my room and shuts the door quietly as I collapse back onto the bed. Now my headache is mixed with the manic nervousness I get right before a concert or a show.

Carmina is suddenly loud, startling Battle. “What are you listening to?”

I point to the CD case, which I have conveniently left on the floor. She picks it up. “Oh—I know this. They choreographed part of it for us to do at All-State. Um . . .you have a headache?”

“I know,” I say, louder than before, to be heard over the chorus that’s blasting out of my boom box. “But I love it. I thought it might help.”

Battle’s still holding the washcloth full of ice. “Do you want this? You don’t have to—”

“Oh, yes, I do,” I say.

walks to the bed, leans over, and very carefully places the ice-filled washcloth onto my forehead. There’s a small trickle of sweat running down into the hollow of her neck, and her green tank top is clinging to her. I feel something start thudding more than my headache and realize it’s my pulse.

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