Damaged by Amy Reed Read Free Book Online Page A

strong.”
    But I know you can’t do that.
    â€œJust try. You’re not even trying.”
    This is how fast we were going. This is how fast we will always go.
    â€œWait!” I say. “I was the one driving. This is not how it hap­pened. Let me drive.”
    But you know I will try to change things that cannot be changed.
    â€œCamille!”
    The lights. Like two holes in the night. I lose my grip and the ceiling goes flying, the metal like wings. Hunter flies away with it. My hands are bleeding. More parts fall away until there is no car left, until it is just you and me and wind and light.
    â€œWho’s driving?” I scream.
    No one.
    â€œStep on the brakes!” I scream.
    There are no brakes.
    Just light and wind and me screaming, me thrashing about. I am running through space to nowhere. I am always running. I run but I don’t move. The light comes closer until it is all that is. The light and the screams and the wind and the metal. Then the crash and the float and the flying away.
    â€œI should have been the one driving,” your voice says into the light. I cannot see you. I cannot see anything.
    â€œYou were drunk,” I say.
    â€œBut still. You killed me.”

THREE
    From white to black, like smashing into a wall.
    Flying through infinity, then cold and hard and way too still.
    I am a lump of gravity.
    I suck in air.
    My muscles tense, full of needles.
    I have been running. I am running. I need to run.
    Shadows everywhere. Outlines of furniture. Stationary things.
    Something in the corner.
    A shadow in the shape of a body.
    A shadow that could be solid.
    The figure moves. An arm goes up. Reaching for me.
    Everything in my body is ice.
    â€œCamille?” I whisper.
    Wind blows through the open window, curtains flutter, and the figure is gone.
    My eyes adjust to the dark. My water glass and lamp are knocked off the table. Broken glass swims on the floor. Like the aftermath of a fight.
    â€œFuck this.”
    I jump out of bed. I pull on shorts and a sports bra and T-shirt and running shoes. The clock reads 3:52 a.m.
    Don’t drink water. Don’t eat. Don’t stretch. Don’t think.
    Just start running. Just move. Just go.
    It is already warm in the darkness. The lightning bugs blink on and off. My feet crunch the gravelly pavement. I close my eyes and feel the mechanics of my body. My bones and muscles are the only things I can trust.
    Run. Just run. If you run fast enough, nothing can catch you. If you run long enough, everyone else will give up.
    * * *
    Mom is sitting at the kitchen table when I get home. I am drenched with sweat, panting hard. She is stirring soy milk into her tea. She raises an eyebrow at me. Keeps stirring.
    â€œDo we have any canned beans?” I pant. I need protein and that’s the closest I can get in this house.
    â€œSometimes I wish you were just a pothead,” she says. “That I could understand.”
    â€œMom, do we have any beans? Or some of that fake taco meat maybe?”
    â€œYou’re so pedestrian, Kinsey. I named you after a sex doctor and this is what I get.”
    She’s in one of her moods. I knew it was coming. I have to eat fast to get out of here as soon as possible. I grab a box of cereal, the least healthy thing I can find that still says “organic” so Mom will allow it in the house. I fill a mixing bowl with nearly half the box.
    â€œAre you anorexic?” she says.
    â€œYou’re asking me this as I’m about to eat five servings of cereal?”
    â€œHow long were you running?”
    â€œI don’t know. What time is it?”
    â€œAlmost seven.”
    â€œI guess about three hours.”
    â€œThree hours! Are you insane?”
    â€œI walked part of the time and I stretched in the middle. Calm down.” I fill a huge glass full of water and gulp it down. I fill it again.
    She sighs and shakes her head. “You run too much. It’s like an