Gathering Clouds by V. C. Andrews Read Free Book Online Page A

out a single detail, I’ll never forgive you,” she said.
    I laughed.
    I was really and truly bursting with the need to tell someone. I had no other close friend here and I certainly couldn’t confide in my sister.
    I didn’t know it then. I wouldn’t know it for months and months, but Lynette Robinson was the only person who would know the name of the father of my child.

FIVE
     
    Nature plays a mean trick on us. She fills us with the capacity to feel great passion, to love someone even more than we love ourselves, and She puts all this into something seemingly as spontaneous as a tornado, our raging love. You could be riding along on what looks like a clam, quiet day and suddenly, without warning, the air begins to swirl around you and before you know it, a tempestuous funnel is threatening to carry you off. Maybe it’s just that passion has the power to blind us, to make us forget so many things, the least of which is what we’re about to do.
    My love for Larry was so strong and growing stronger every passing day we spent together that I was willing to risk anything to be with him. He was the one who wanted to be careful, to not, if possible, stir up any gossip and discussion, to raise any flags, worry my family, cause any problems at all. I loved and hated his sensibleness. I wanted him to be as reckless as I was, to be as carefree and uninhibited and defiant. Of course, I had more shackles to throw off. I was the one born in a privileged world, the one who carried a prestigious name. As he had said, he was his only family now. He had no one to disappoint but himself. Ironically, I eventually cared more about him and the possibility of his being disappointed in himself than I did about myself and my family and our reputations. Protecting Larry and his future became more important than anything, and because of that, I kept a secret I thought he would never learn. I suppose now when I think of that it makes me feel even guiltier.
    How cold something so wonderful become so dark and terrible.
    Those were my wild days, the days Daddy unknowingly had predicted for me, days when you let the wind blow through your hair and you didn’t worry about time, tomorrow, obligations, anything. Only the moment mattered. I would wish the hours away until I was able to be with Larry, whether they were the hours filled with classes or his having to work. I even offered to give him money so he could quit his job and spend more time with me, but he was not only shocked by my offer, he was offended. I quickly pretended I had been joking. He knew otherwise, but said nothing. The words lingered in the air, however, and I hated ever having given birth to them. I could hear his pride ringing in my ears. Of course I couldn’t buy him, and he had been so independent his whole life that the very thought of being kept by a rich white girl was abhorrent. He knew instinctively that it would destroy who and what he was.
    “I’m not afraid of being uncomfortable or tired. I am not afraid of hard work and the struggle, Megan,” he told me. “My English teacher, Mr. Madeo, tells me it’s the journey that’s the goal.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You always think if I had this, if I were this, if I made this, I’d be happy. The happiness, the joy comes from the pursuit of the things you want.”
    “That sounds silly.”
    “Yes, it does, but it’s not. When we’re old and gray and sitting on some porch somewhere, we’ll think back not to the achievement, but the struggle, the roads taken to get there.”
    “Maybe you will. I’ve always been in a limousine,” I said and he laughed.
    “That’s what I like about you, Megan.”
    “What?”
    “Your ability to satirize yourself. It gives me confidence, faith, that in the long run you know what’s important and what’s not.”
    “Do I? I hope so,” I said. I didn’t have as much confidence in myself as he had in me.
    In the end I was right.
    We did so many noncollegiate things