Ache for You (Trapped in Three Hill Book 1) by Nancy Beaudet Read Free Book Online Page B

Like really dude? I’m calling bullshit all over you. What were you going to go? Stand at the bottom of Buffalo Falls with your beautiful arms held wide out?”
                  I cross my arms, yelling loud. I want your neighbors to complain about you. I want you to get kicked out of this tomb you call home. You should have never moved out of your parents’ house. They may not be the best parents in the word, God knows every trophy they ever made you win, they wanted just for themselves.
                  Still, I know that they loved you, deep down. I know that they still do.
                  “You should go home, being here? It’s not good for you. It’s not healthy to live alone and wallow. This isn’t that mother and daughter show you were talking about, although that was one of my favourite episodes.” I’m rambling now.
                  “Do you remember that time we stayed up watching late-night talk shows? We ordered in Chinese food and sat on my parents’ couch. My parents trusted you enough to leave us alone. I don’t know how to tell you the truth; your reputation is no secret in this town.”
                  I want to sit down.
                  “You said that the best Chinese food was served at the mall, yeah that was probably true. We should have eaten in the food court like normal people. We could have eavesdropped on all of those old people. I never could figure out why all the old people in Three Hill like to hang out at the mall, why not go to Monster Milkshakes ? They have a breakfast-all-day kind of menu.”
                  Mal starts to pace and the hardwood floor creaks with his every move, my own footsteps are hallowing.
                  I’m cold.
                  “I want to die, Flo,” you whisper to yourself, head hung low. Your beautiful glowing eyes are closed.
                  “No.” I don’t want you to continue as if you never heard me at all, but I know that you will anyhow. And you do.
                  “It hurts when I swallow and it hurts when I breathe in and it hurts to breathe out. My stomach is aching, I can’t feel my own muscles move, and my entire body is full of pins and needles. I don’t feel real.”
                  “What?” your words make me stumble.
                  “How do you not feel real? Are you ill? Oh no, no no no. This is not allowed; this will not do. I won’t let you do this Mal, I would say not over my dead body but that phrase is a little tired out, and also, way too literal for what we’re going through right now.”
                  You ignore me. I want to strangle you.
                  “I jumped off of a fucking cliff Mal, did you not see the nightly news report? Death is not beautiful! It does not solve your problems and it does not take you where you want to do. Go ahead, do your research Mal. What about Google™. Did you do an image search?  Check it out. As soon as the news broke everyone in our tiny world knew that there was no saving Flo.              
                  The fall didn’t kill me though; it was the sharp rocks on the way down. I think I may have actually succeeded in poking an eye out. Isn’t that what the adults always warned us about?”
                  Don’t run with scissors Flo. You’ll poke an eye out.
                  “I wasn’t dead yet when I hit the bottom. I was unconscious and bleeding to death with a good half of my skull gone, but I still had a pulse. The paramedics checked. The firemen. They told everyone that my death was quick when it was, in fact, slow, that it was painless when it was, in fact, pain ful . That’s what kindness gets you.”
                  Bull and more bull.
                  I could see it in their eyes though. They felt horrible. A