Friends Forever by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

about his parents, who were so visibly devastated by what Kevin had done and by what could happen to him.
    “Some people are just different, I guess,” Izzie said quietly. “Even in the same family. How’s your mom?” They had all been worried about her. Kevin’s arrest had been such a shock.
    “She’s a mess. She’s not saying anything, but she looks like she was hit by a bus. So does my dad. He’s taking Kev to Phoenix tomorrow.”
    “Is Kevin scared?” Izzie asked, impressed by what was happening. He was the first person they knew who was going to rehab.
    “No, I think he’s pissed. He’s not saying much, and he came down to dinner tonight stoned off his ass. My parents didn’t see it, but I could tell. Dad told him he had to come down for Mom. She cried all through dinner.” It sounded awful to Izzie, and she could hear the strain of it in Sean’s voice, who hated to see his parents so upset.
    Mike and Kevin left the next morning before Sean got up. Connie got up to say goodbye to her son and tried to hug him, but he shook her off and turned away, and that was more than Mike could take, and he grabbed his arm, hard.
    “Say a decent goodbye to your mother,” he said through clenched teeth, and Kevin hugged her as she cried. They left then, while it was still dark, and she lay in bed and sobbed. Mike came back alone late that night, and he burst into tears when he sat down on their bed, and Connie took him in her arms and held him to comfort him.
    “How was he when you left him?” Connie asked about Kevin.
    “He looked like he hated me. He just turned his back on me and walked away.” Kevin had already forgotten that a judge had put him there, not his parents.
    The O’Hara house seemed instantly too quiet without Kevin, although he’d already been away at college. But his recent presence had seemed larger than life, with his hostility, his clandestine drinking and dope smoking, and the stress he caused everyone around him. At first the peace without him seemed unnatural and unfamiliar. Sean missed the idea of a big brother, but the reality of Kevin was never what he hoped.
    Sean alternated studying and distracting himself by watching TV. His favorite shows were still the crime shows, and Izzie came over to study with him a few times. She baked him his favorite cookies, and cupcakes for him and his parents. It was hard to know what to do to help: she could see the sadness in their eyes, even Sean’s.
    Sean was quiet for the next few weeks, and was starting to feel better when they had midterms to get through. Izzie was halfway through studying for them when her father knocked on her bedroom door and asked her to come into the living room one night. She followed him out of her room with a look of surprise, and was instantly scared when she saw her mother waiting on the couch, looking tense.
    “Am I in trouble?” Izzie asked, looking from one to the other. She couldn’t think of anything bad she’d done, but you never knew. Anything was possible. Maybe school had called to say she’d flunked all her tests. If they had, it would have been a first.
    “Your mother and I have something to tell you,” Jeff said quietly, after he sat down. Izzie was sitting in a chair, and everything about the scene was strange. Her mother wouldn’t look at her, and the room was so quiet that Izzie could hear the antique wall clock ticking in the hall. She couldn’t remember ever hearing it from the living room before, but no one was talking. “We’re getting a divorce,” Jeff said with a look of defeat.
    Izzie stared at them with wide eyes, with no idea what to say in response. How awful? How could you? Why? Don’t you love each other? What’s going to happen to me now? A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, but nothing came out of her mouth. She wanted to scream or cry, but she couldn’t do either. All she could do was stare from one to the other, and finally her mother dragged her eyes to