After Obsession by Carrie Jones, Steven E. Wedel Read Free Book Online Page B

of the road. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”
    I bite even though I don’t want to. Part of what I like about Blake is that he’s a pretty positive person. I tend to shy away from the negatives. Still, I ask, “Why?”
    “Courtney’s stupid cousin trounced me today. He was like some sort of superhero,” Blake says.
    “He killed him.” Eric leans forward between the seats. “He’ll be first man. Blake’ll be second. I’ll be third. Toby and Dalton? Four and five. We have a definite chance for state as a team this year, not just individuals.”
    “I hate losing to someone like him,” Blake mutters.
    Eric and I exchange looks.
    “Someone like him?” I repeat, turning back forward in my seat. Does he mean because he’s Native American? Or because he’s poor? Or a metalhead? None are good. Anger creeps into my throat and shame hits me hard right in the middle of the chest. “What do you mean?”
    “Nothing,” Blake grunts.
    Nothing? I wipe at my forehead, trying to figure out what’s happened lately to sweet, nice, overachiever Blake, trying to figure out how someone’s entire personality can change. He’s not the only one, though. Everyone is getting crankier, meaner somehow. You can feel it in the air. We pass the Congregational Church and head down the Bucksport Road.
    “Let me off first,” I say.
    As soon as I get in the door, Gramps hands me an oatmeal raisin cookie and says, “Your brother’s being temperamental.”
    I bite the cookie. It’s still warm. “How come?”
    “Some brat beat him up at school today.” Gramps throws a dish towel over his bony shoulder. “The principal said there have been fights every damn day. She doesn’t know what’s going on. She sounded just about ready to throw up her hands on the lot of them. Anyway, I told your brother he had to fight back. He told me he was a pacifist. I told him there are no pacifists allowed in this house. Go talk to him, Aimee.”
    “Me?”
    “He needs a woman’s touch, and you’re so good at making people calmer.” Gramps tries to smile in a charming way. “I’ll make you more cookies.”
    “Fine.”
    Maybe thinking about Benji will keep me from thinking about Alan. Maybe it’ll keep me sane. Who knows? Maybe it’ll keep me from remembering my dreams.
    Poor Benji’s climbed up into the tree house we made him last year for his birthday. It’s an A-frame and has a ladder, a deck, and a pretty awesome view of the river. You can smell the salt of the ocean on the wind today. I like that smell.
    He’s not all curled up and fetal, not sobbing his heart out or anything, which is what I was worried about. Instead, he’s chucking twigs off the tiny deck, throwing as hard and as far as he can. As I haul myself up, a twig smashes into a tall fir tree. A squirrel gets spastic about it.
    “You are such a boy,” I say, sitting on the plywood.
    He grunts.
    “You are.”
    He shrugs, but something in his face shifts. He snaps a twig in half and kicks some pine needles off the deck. They tumble to the ground. He starts sweeping all the needles off the wood, cleaning house.
    “So, what’s going on at school?” I ask him.
    “You don’t care.”
    “Right, that’s why I’m up here in your tree house watching you kick pine needles instead of getting a snack, or doing my homework, or painting.”
    “You’re just avoiding Gramps.”
    I drop my butt down on the deck and pull my knees up to my chest. “Sometimes Gramps is a pain.”
    “At least he’s here,” Benji says. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans, pulls out a very used tissue, and blows his nose.
    “What do you mean?”
    “Mom’s not here.”
    “She can’t be here anymore, Benj. You know that. She died.”
    He scrapes at the corner of his eye like he’s getting out those sleep crud things that are there in the morning, only it’s not morning. Then he says, “Dad’s never here.”
    “He has to work.” It sounds like a lame excuse, just like when