Alex by Lauren Oliver Read Free Book Online

and she smiles again. “Stay, okay? Stay , Ninpin,” she repeats, when I hesitate.
    When Dara gets like this, turns sweet and pleading, like her old self, like the sister who used to climb onto my chest and beg me, wide-eyed, to wake up, wake up, she’s almost impossible to resist. Almost. “I have to get up at seven,” I say, even as she’s leading me outside, into the fizz and pop of the rain. “I promised Mom I’d help straighten up before Aunt Jackie gets here.”
    For the first month or so after Dad announced he was leaving, Mom acted like absolutely nothing was different. But recently she’s been forgetting : to turn on the dishwasher, to set her alarm, to iron her work blouses, to vacuum. It’s like every time he removes another item from the house—his favorite chair, the chess set he inherited from his father, the golf clubs he never uses—it takes a portion of her brain with it.
    â€œWhy?” Dara rolls her eyes. “She’ll just bring cleansing crystals with her to do the work. Please,” she adds. She has to raise her voice to be heard over the music; someone has just turned up the volume. “You never come out.”
    â€œThat’s not true,” I say. “It’s just that you’re always out.” The words sound harsher than I’d intended. But Dara only laughs.
    â€œLet’s not fight tonight, okay?” she says, and leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. Her lips are candy-sticky. “Let’s be happy.”
    A group of guys—juniors, I’m guessing—huddled together in the half-dark of the barn start hooting and clapping. “All right!” one of them shouts, raising a beer. “Lesbian action!”
    â€œShut up, dick!” Dara says. But she’s laughing. “She’s my sister .”
    â€œThat’s definitely my cue,” I say.
    But Dara isn’t listening. Her face is flushed, her eyes bright with alcohol. “She’s my sister,” she announces again, to no one and also to everyone, since Dara is the kind of person other people watch, want, follow. “ And my best friend.”
    More hooting; a scattering of applause. Another guy yells, “Get it on!”
    Dara throws an arm around my shoulder, leans up to whisper in my ear, her breath sweet-smelling, sharp with booze. “Best friends for life,” she says, and I’m no longer sure whether she’s hugging me or hanging on me. “Right, Nick? Nothing— nothing —can change that.”

AFTER
    http://www.theShorelineBlotter.com/march28_accidentsandreports
----
    At 11:55 p.m., Norwalk police responded to a crash on Route 101, just south of the Shady Palms Motel. The driver, Nicole Warren, 17, was taken to Eastern Memorial with minor injuries. The passenger, Dara Warren, 16, who was not wearing her seat belt, was rushed by ambulance to the ICU and is, at the time of this posting, still in critical condition. We’re all praying for you, Dara.
    Sooo sad. Hope she pulls through!
    posted by: mamabear27 at 6:04 a.m.
    i live right down the road heard the crash from a half mile away!!!
    posted by: qTpie27 at 8:04 a.m.
    These kids think they’re indestructible. Who doesn’t wear a seat belt?? She has no one to blame but herself.
    posted by: markhhammond at 8:05 a.m.
    Have some compassion, dude! We all do stupid things.
    posted by: trickmatrix at 8:07 a.m.
    Some people stupider than others.
    posted by: markhhammond at 8:08 a.m.

Copyright
    ALEX . Copyright © 2013 by Laura Schechter. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in