Gravestone by Travis Thrasher Read Free Book Online Page A

increase and we’re moving back to Colorado. I’ve wanted that for a while. I’m excited. I’ll be able to catch a few great months of skiing.
Listen—one other thing. About Poe. Behind the dark makeup and the crabby demeanor and all that is a really beautiful girl. Inside and out. I say that because she’s on her own too. She’s not too happy—not with me or with life in general. And I know that for some crazy reason she blames you. But she’ll get over it.
There’s more to Poe than meets the eye.
Drop me a line sometime.
Stay cool. And don’t let the place drag you down.
Rachel
     
    I hold the letter and reexamine the words.
    They mock me.
    Just like this place and everybody in it.
    I hope you stay in touch with her.
    It’s ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.
    Maybe I need to get a Ouija board and communicate with the dead. Or, better yet, I can find whatever those weird cards were that the students were playing with at Ray’s party and join in and perhaps get a joker card that explains all of this.
    I glance at the address and the email at the bottom.
    Then in one swift motion, I tear up the letter. Again. And again. Until I have it in as many little pieces as possible.
    Then I go outside onto the deck and toss the paper flakes into the angry winds, watching them disappear to the shadowy grounds far below.

14. The Sighting
     
    The next day, Friday morning, one more day before a mini-break that to me is the equivalent of a smoke break outside the prison doors, I find a note in my locker.
    Of course I do.
    Whenever I get a cell phone, maybe in like ten years, I’m going to be flooded with creepy and strange texts.
    But for now, it’s good old-fashioned pen and paper.
    Turns out this note is signed. That’s good because most of the notes I get are from Anonymous.
Take a walk down your street and head toward town tomorrow morning around 10. Maybe someone will come pick you up.
Jared
     
    So school isn’t off limits to him.
    I wonder if I can wait until then. I have a lot more questions I want this guy to answer.
    Turns out someone else has some questions for me.
    I’m approached by the poster child for the model high school student. Ray comes up to me and barely says hi before asking me about track.
    “Oh, yeah.” I’d totally forgotten. “Yeah, I’m thinking about it.”
    “So why didn’t you come? We need you, man.”
    “Next week, then.”
    I’m so assertive. So strong.
    “Monday. Hey, you coming to church?”
    And for some reason, one I can’t really explain, I nod.
    Nod as in saying yes.
    Nod as in saying Yes, I’d love to come back to your place for crazy people.
    He tells me he’ll see me then and leaves. For a moment I wonder what I’ve just done, then I realize that I want to go. I really want to go back to the church.
    Maybe some of my questions will be answered. Maybe they’ll be answered without my having to go search and find them.
    After my class gets out for lunch, I see Jocelyn.
    She’s walking in the crowds.
    I’m not imagining this. I see her. Same height. Same dark hair that falls below her shoulders. The way she moves through the other students.
    I almost shout out her name.
    Instead I grab the arm of the guy in front of me to move him aside, then I bolt past a few girls.
    It’s her, I know it.
    But when I tug at her arm and see the face turning toward me, I know.
    It’s a mirage in the middle of a desert.
    A ghost in the middle of a dream.
    The girl who turns has a more round face, different eyes, different everything. She’s cute, and she looks perplexed and amused. Her hair is different—not even the same color.
    What are you doing, Chris?
    She looks at me like I have a fungus, and I recoil as if I do. I see others looking my way, surely wondering and thinking the same things they’ve always been thinking.
    There’s the new guy, still fumbling around and acting loony, still attracting attention.
    “I’m sorry,” I say to the girl who is definitely not