Glass Heart by Amy Garvey Read Free Book Online Page A

Sometimes Jess forgets that the rest of us don’t live on Planet Bling with her, not that she ever makes a big deal of how much money her family has. “I can afford roughly whatever comes in a box of Cracker Jack,” I tell her. “I don’t think anybody wants the kind of watch I can buy.”
    Dar bites back a laugh and reaches over to tangle our fingers together. Her hand is dry and cool. “What about burning him a CD?”
    “Ugh. The mix solution.” I sigh, and blow a plume of steam into the frigid air. “So completely lame.”
    “God, are you done?” Dar asks Jess. She’s shivering beside me, and the pencils in her hair wobble. “My brain is now frozen, and I really want that soda, but I’m afraid my tongue’s going to stick to it.”
    “You two would never make it as POWs,” Jess says. She stubs out her cigarette, and we troop back inside. The kitchen is gloriously warm, but I’d still rather have a huge mug of hot coffee or tea than the cold soda.
    “At least now I’m too cold to realize everything I don’t understand about Kafka,” Dar says with a groan.
    “Come on.” I grab her hand and lead her back to the cluttered dining room table. “I’ll explain it again.”
     
    An hour later, Jess is reciting chemical elements under her breath, and Dar has moved on to irregular Spanish verbs. I’m still stuck on trig, even though most of my brain is elsewhere.
    It’s quiet aside from the bare branch that sometimes scrapes at the window, and Lass occasionally snoring under the table. Dar has her iPod on and a new pencil anchoring the crazy knot of her hair, and I’m getting sleepy. Trigonometry wouldn’t be the most exciting subject in the world even if I understood it.
    As I slouch in my chair, staring at my open notebook, I’m trying not to think about Gabriel. At least not about what happened last night.
    I close my eyes, picturing it so perfectly, I can almost feel it again. The flush of heat, and beneath it that distant thrum of power, beating steady as a heart in my blood, in Gabriel’s blood . . .
    Nothing that feels that good is usually good for you.
    “Hey, no sleeping on the job,” Jess barks, and I jolt back to the present to find her watching me, one eyebrow cocked. “I find that study by osmosis doesn’t work very well,” she adds, and picks up her soda to drain the last few sips.
    “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.” My voice is as wobbly as I feel just remembering last night.
    “Damn, I should have gotten a picture of that,” Jess says. “I could have Photoshopped in some drool.”
    “That’s it!” I sit up so suddenly, I almost knock over my soda can.
    “That’s what?”
    “Sorry.” My face is hot, and my pulse kicks hard. “I know what I can give Gabriel for Christmas.”
    Jess scrunches up her face. “Your drool?”
    I roll my eyes. “It’s criminal that you’re not on Comedy Central already, you know.”
    She rolls her eyes right back. “Fine, don’t tell me.”
    Darcia takes out her earbuds. “What are you talking about? And so loudly.”
    “I figured out Gabriel’s Christmas gift.” I stuff my notebooks into my bag as quickly as I can.
    “Oh! Cool. Wait, what is it?” she says. One cheek is a warm pink where she’d propped it on her hand, and she sounds half awake.
    “Pictures,” I say, and Jess looks up from her notes. “Places we’ve been, stuff like that.”
    For a second, in the dog-panting silence, I want to take it back. It’s probably dumb, a cheesy do-it-yourself nightmare that he’ll laugh at, and any minute Jess is going to say . . .
    “That’s perfect.” She sits up straighter, tucking her hair behind her ears, all business now. “You take awesome pictures. Or . . . you know, you did there for a while.”
    I did all the time, before Danny died. A camera is a great way to put some distance between yourself and the world, and I liked being behind the lens. No one pays attention to you back there, at least after they