Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow Read Free Book Online Page A

they do it on the table or always in the stairwell? Was it cold? What did they talk about? They’re both so tall and good-looking, clean-faced and sexy. I picture them pushing at each other and the insides of my thighs get warm. And then Mikey is in my head, his blond dreads soft and never gross-smelling, smiling at me and Ellis from the old lounger in his room, letting us get wild and play music as loud as we wanted. I was never with Mikey, but I would have tried, I mean, I wanted to, so much, but he loved Ellis. The boys I found smelled like burned glass and anger. Dirt streaked their skin, and tattoos, and acne. They lived in garages or cars. I knew those boys would never stick. They were oily; they would slither away after what we did in a dirty back room at a show or in the bathroom of someone’s basement at a party.
    Ellis had a boy. He had wolf teeth and a long black coat and he fucked her in her parents’ basement on the spongy pink carpet while I listened from across the room, cocooned in a sleeping bag. He left her things: silver bracelets, filmy stockings, Russian nesting dolls filled with round blue pills. When he didn’t call, she cried until her throat was raw. When she mentioned his name, Mikey would look away, and you could see his jaw get tight, his face darken.
    Thinking about bodies fitting together makes me sad and hungry for something. I roll over and press my face into the pillow, try to make my mind go blank, ignore the itching of my scars. Louisa sighs restlessly in her sleep.
    I don’t want to believe she’s right.

Jen’s mother is dough-plump, with round cheeks and pinched lips. Her dad is a fatty, the zipper of his coach’s jacket straining across his belly. Her parents stand in the hallway, watching us apprehensively. In a little while, Nurse Vinnie herds us into Rec and locks the door. We won’t be allowed to say goodbye to Jen. The girls flit about the room, pulling cards and games from the bin, setting up with Vinnie at the round table. Blue stands at the window. Her dirty-blond hair is tied in a messy knot today; the tattoo of a swallow gleams faintly on the back of her neck. After a little while, she murmurs, “There she goes.”
    We rush to the window. In the parking lot, Jen’s father heaves two green suitcases into the trunk of a black Subaru. The day is gray and cold-looking. He tucks himself in the driver’s seat, the whole car sinking down with the weight of him. Jen towers over her mother like a bendable straw. Her mother pats her once on the arm and opens the rear door, leaving Jen to fold herself into the front, next to her father.
    She never once looks up at us.
    The car melts into traffic, disappearing down the long block of cafés and bars, Middle Eastern trinket shops, and the place where they sell twenty-two kinds of hot dogs. Mikey worked there one summer; his skin radiated relish and sauerkraut.
    The sky is pulpy with dark clouds. There have been a lot of storms lately, unusual for April. The sound of Blue’s voice brings me back. “Poor Bruce,” she says softly, pointing out the window.
    Barbero is standing in a corner of the parking lot. He’s not wearing scrubs today: he’s wearing a light blue hoodie and collared shirt, jeans and white sneakers, just like any other guy on the street.
    “Oh,” I say. Then,
“Oh.”
    He liked Jen. His name is
Bruce.
    He’s got little wire-frame glasses on that make him look not so…
oafish
…but kind of…nice. Blue and I watch as he wipes his eyes, climbs into his own car, a rusty little orange hatchback, and drives away,
    “Poor, poor Bruce,” Blue murmurs.
    Bodies fit together. And sometimes they don’t.

Isis fingers the Scrabble tiles. Her nails are bitten down even farther than mine. Her tongue works at the corner of her mouth.
    “Almost ready, Chuck.” She yanks a tile from the board. “Almost.”
    I fiddle with my tie-dyed T-shirt and flowery hippie skirt. Mikey’s mom did come by with a box of Tanya’s