100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

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    â€œCan I help you? You’re shivering,” she said.
    â€œYou can shut my fucking door.”
    And as soon as Julia Bishop stood and moved toward the front door, I forced myself up, dizzy and dripping, my shaking hands covering my stiff penis, and I ran upstairs to the shower.
    Ridiculous.

PIZZA-DELIVERY BOY
    Julia Bishop stayed in my house and waited while I took a shower.
    I felt terrible for how I’d acted.
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    After I get mad about my blanking out, I get depressed. I can’t help it. It happens every time.
    The depression can be pretty bad sometimes too. I was particularly sad that night after Julia Bishop walked in and found me lying on my living room floor.
    But I never tell anyone about feeling this way, because I am so good at just being fine.

    Most times when I’d feel mopey after coming back from a seizure, I would find myself trying to remember my mother, thinking about how that dead horse fell one hundred sideways miles to land— thud! —directly on top of us.
    I generally considered how nice it would be if I could simply stop myself from hurtling through space so fast, if only for a few seconds at a time.
    If I could have done such a thing, that horse would have been halfway to Sacramento by the time it landed.
    Was I sorry for what happened? Sure I was, but that was billions of miles away from here. And if there is one thing I am certain of, it is this: When we think about all those miles in back of us, it’s easy to feel regret—sometimes because of things we didn’t do, sometimes for the things we did.
    Or we feel regret because of what happened to us, since we’re all so goddamned innocent and undeserving.
    And when we think about the miles ahead, we worry about something that probably isn’t ever going to happen anyway.
    Imagine that.
    Worry and regret are both useless weights that provide no drag. They never did anything to slow down the planet for one goddamned second.
    My atoms have been around for fourteen billion years. I know beyond any doubt they have seen far worse things than a dead horse falling out of the sky.
    It doesn’t mean I don’t cry about it once in a while.
    That’s okay, right?
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    I didn’t bring any clean clothes into the bathroom to put on.
    My wet swim trunks hung across the top of the shower door. I was terrified to step into the openness of the house, and I wanted to sleep.
    So I sat on the toilet, wrapped in a towel. My head ached, and I was terribly sad.
    I put my face in my hands. My wet hair hung down, drip-drip-drip ping onto my lap.
    Hair grows about half an inch per month, the same amount of time it takes us to fly fifty million miles through space.
    I’ll admit this: I think about ways to kill myself.
    Do I need to be specific?
    Everybody thinks about it, right?
    I am not afraid to contemplate such things, but I am afraid of what suicide would do to my dad, to Cade, or Mom and Nadia.
    They are the anchors that keep me from knackering my fourteen-billion-year-old atoms back out into the universe where they came from, where they belong.
    Dad would be so mad at me if he ever found out what happened.

    I don’t know how long I sat there with my face in my hands—maybe ten thousand miles—until I finally gave up on the idea of hiding away in my bathroom forever.
    Not very much hair grew.
    I got up, wiped my face, and came out, wrapped in a towel.
    I called down from the top of the stairs, “Are you still here?”
    Then Julia Bishop appeared below.
    She was looking at me.
    â€œI thought you knew my name. It’s Julia,” she said.
    â€œI know that.”
    â€œI wasn’t sure if you needed help or anything,” Julia said.
    â€œI’m really sorry for how I acted, um, Julia.” I felt myself turning red, backing away from the upstairs railing, unable to stop looking at her, wishing she wouldn’t look at me