At the Twilight's Last Gleaming by David Bischoff Read Free Book Online Page B

Peter had set his lunch tray beside from me, along with some friends. Scarcely able to munch on my apple, I observed him.
    He was piercingly beautiful. His eyebrows were arched and just the right color of dark to accent those dreamy brown eyes of his. His nose was so delicately carved, his chin so cute— his cheekbones perfectly refined, the result surely of some perfect artist rather than nature. He smelled delicious. And when he happened to smile at me, I felt absolutely liquid inside.
    When he left, I realized I hadn’t touched my cheese or bread — but felt no hunger. I couldn’t eat dinner that evening. I sat listening to Chopin on my cheap stereo, trying to do my homework, his voice and what he said playing over and over again my head.
    I was dumbstruck. I’d never been affected this way before by a boy. All this physical attraction business seemed amusingly abstract, stuff that other had to suffer, but no….no….not me.
    I dreamed about him that night, and I woke up, sweating, thinking about the delicate way his hands had curled around his carton of milk, and the charming angle his neck had taken when he’d leaned back to laugh. Peter Harrigan seemed all sparkle and delight — with some secret ingredient that made him irresistible to some previously unknown part of me. My catnip? Maybe. Whatever it was, it shook me to the bottom of my being — or at least to the bottom of my body.
    My body.
    I took a deep breath now in Harry’s basement, listening to Jimi Hendrix play Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower.” It was a body thing. When you were dealing with a body thing like physical attraction, it was like hunger. You needed something. Right here! Right now!
    But, with sometime to relax the body, get it out of the driver’s seat— and let the mind take over — well it was just the right thing to do.
    Harry was right.
    I nodded, as though to myself. “No cape. No cape. But I’ll be around him. Lots.”
    “And you’ll actually have dialogue with him,” said Harry, selling his point harder. “You could, like, even have a few problems with that dialogue. Yeah. And maybe go off to rehearse with him. Alone!”
    “Alone….together!” I hadn’t thought of that at all.
    “You’re right. You’re right! Oh, you’re the best, Harry! Just the best!”
    I got up and hugged him and kissed his forehead.
    He was so surprised, he didn’t move.
    I held him a bit tighter, and it felt nice. He smelled of popcorn and Old Spice and old records with a whiff of sneakers. It was like hugging my brother or father in some ways, but there was still a closeness, a trust.
    “Oh….uh…thanks.”
    I broke off the hug and planted myself back on the couch.
    “What a day!” I said.
    “Yeah,” Harry said. “What a day.”First rehearsal — this Friday afternoon.”
    “Harry — how do you know so much about the production?”
    He smiled.
    “I joined the drama club. Tech side. I’m going to help with staging. Lights mostly I think.”
    I smiled at him. “Oh Harry, that’s the best news I’ve heard all day.”
    I had to hug him again.



CHAPTER NINE
    I WAS ALONE
in the woods.
    There was a stillness in the trees, thick as the leaves. The scent of woodsmoke hung in the air, a charred, uneasy smell. Above, in a blue-black sky laced with rippled clouds, hung an intensely full moon, pregnant with light.
    I was walking. I was walking alone in the woods, and I knew that I wanted to get home. I wanted to get home and lock all the windows and bar all the doors. I had no idea what I was doing in the woods alone.
    My feet thumped along the path, and I could feel my own breath hot in my lungs. Something in the bushes stirred, and panic gripped me tight around my mid-section, an iron hand of paralysis. I stopped, took a deep breath of the night.
    And then I heard it.
    It started as almost a whisper, a soft something coming out of nowhere. And then it built, built up to a keening, and then a long, aching howl.
    I felt my