Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel by Holly Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

definitively, “Carolina,” and seemed to nod off, the needle still projecting from her foot.
    I was shaking as I went into the bathroom, shaking as I peed. I’m sure some of it went on the seat, and normally, I feel like if you make it, you should wipe it up, but no way was I going to touch that seat. I was too scared of catching whatever all these people on the bus had, whatever Hellma’s got.
    When I reached my row, Kyle was still asleep. I forced his arm up and around me, needing the protection, but from what, I couldn’t exactly say.
    I barely slept. This morning, when Kyle got off the bus, he gave me his cell phone number. He told me I could call him if I was ever in trouble. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” I said, like I was a character in a movie. Like I was carefree.
    Hellma got off the bus, too. She saw me, I’m sure, but she didn’t even wave good-bye.
    Now I’m alone, and I’m really feeling it. I keep trying to forget the way Hellma looked last night, like some figure from beyond the grave or something. I tell myself I can’t catch what she’s got. She’s an old drug addict. It’s sad and all, but it’s not contagious. My life is nothing like hers.
    I’ve got a seat all to myself. In front of me is a new guy. He’s in an army uniform and says he just came back from his third tour in Iraq. He’s telling the guy next to him all about it. He starts out boasting about his patrols, about shooting bad guys. It sounds made-up, like maybe he’s just been playing video games. Then he’s talking about partying—“You need to party just to shake off all you’ve seen, man”—and finally, he’s describing this dead Iraqi family and their dead baby. And I can tell that part’s not made up, because he’s mad about it.
    His voice got louder. “They shouldn’t have been killed, and the way that baby’s guts were splattered . . .”
    I closed my eyes. I felt a little sick. The guy next to him must have felt it, too, because he said, “Shh.” The soldier got angrier. He said, top volume, “People should know what’s going on in their names. I’m not some dirty fucking secret.” But he did shut up for a minute. Then he muttered, “Not even fucking worth it.”
    They sat there next to each other, and I could feel the tension radiating off them. Finally, the other guy came and sat next to me. I guess he didn’t want to do it too quickly, didn’t want the soldier thinking he’d won.
    He doesn’t smell great but he doesn’t seem dangerous or anything. I could have done worse, I bet.
    I need to stay alert, though. Whoever was cooking their drugs in the bathroom could still be on the bus; the ex-cons are all around me; that soldier is obviously strung pretty tight.
    I repeat my coping statements: I can handle this. I’m stronger than I think.
    It’s not that long now until I arrive. I decide to listen to myiPod, but I won’t let myself listen to the “Teen Angst” playlist, because she made it. Honestly, though, I’ve never loved any music more.
    It’s like I was meant to discover it. I mean, what are the odds that I would get the idea to take up jogging, would do it at the crack of dawn so no one would see me, and in the half-dark, would grab my mother’s iPod by mistake? Then, because I didn’t want to run back to the house, didn’t want to take any more steps than I had to, I went ahead and listened.
    It wasn’t good jogging music. It was, well, angsty. But it kept me going longer than I would have otherwise, kept me going until my lungs were burning, because I didn’t want to give it back. It was all this really emotional music: some of it punk-rock angry (later I found out it was heavy on Hüsker Dü and the Damned) and some poignant (like the Psychedelic Furs’ “The Ghost in You,” which Wikipedia says is “new wave” or “alternative”). I never would have guessed my mom had that kind of raw emotion in her. It was almost like she’d mixed up her iPod with