Justin Kramon by Finny (v5) Read Free Book Online Page A

other many times over the years.
    “Soon, I hope,” Finny said. “But we’re going to need a new plan. I’m grounded now. They think I was sneaking around to get to spend time with you.”
    “Well, you sort of were.”
    “I know. But they have the idea that you’re a lot older and taking advantage of me.”
    “Oh,” Earl said, and Finny could tell by how his voice sounded that he was blushing. He would always be reserved, and a little formal, about sex. She wished that she could reach through the telephone wire now and touch his face.
    “But it’s okay,” Finny said. “They don’t understand that I like being taken advantage of.” It sounded like the kind of sexy thing a woman might say in a movie, and Finny laughed at the role she was straining toward: a heroine, some breezy beauty. It wasn’t her. She was just Finny.
    “Listen, Earl,” Finny said, “I have to get off the phone soon. My mom is out buying groceries and if she catches me on the phone with you she’ll kill me and probably you, too. But I just wanted to say that I still love you, and we’re going to figure something out.”
    This kind of talk, this saying I love you , it had felt so odd that first time, so desperate and dramatic. Making too much of herself. That’s the phrase that had come to mind, a phrase Finny had heard used to describe silly women, who cried and fretted over burnt omelets or stained rugs. But now these theatrical words— I love you, I need to see you —it took almost no effort to say them. When she was with Earl they came to Finny’s lips as naturally as hello and goodbye.
    “I love you, too,” Earl said. “Still.”
    ·    ·    ·
    Sometimes Sylvan visited Finny during her imprisonment. He was spending his vacation at the library, working on a paper about the Constitution and its belief in “the inherent goodness of man.” That’s how he described it to Finny, and she told him it sounded like something their dad would say.
    “Maybe,” Sylvan said, a little defensively. “But only because it’s a smart idea. I thought of it completely myself.”
    “I’m glad you’re using your powers for good.”
    “Someone has to,” Sylvan teased her.
    “And I definitely don’t want to be that person,” Finny told him.
    Another time she had been crying. It was an embarrassing thing that happened to her every now and again over the course of that week and a half, and as usual, she tried to hide it. But since Earl had entered her life, she’d found that for some reason it was much easier for her to cry. Anything could start it. A pretty piece of music. The way the hills looked on a clear evening. She’d never understood why people cried so much—at the end of movies, or when they got a nice letter. But now she saw something about the world, about how beautiful things are always a little sad, too. She understood that, in a way, she was crying for Earl, but also for other things she had lost, or would lose. And she knew that this feeling, this endless, inconsolable longing, would forever be a part of her life, a part of what it meant to truly love. It was a vision Earl had given her without knowing it, and in the end she could never say whether it was good or bad, only that she had it now, and could never give it back.
    A knock on the door.
    “Go away,” Finny said through tears.
    Another knock. “It’s me, Finny.” Sylvan’s voice.
    She wiped her eyes on her shirt and let her brother in. He sat down on her bed.
    “I’m sorry you’re having such a crappy vacation,” he told her. “This sucks.”
    She wasn’t sure how to respond to this. She was concentrating too hard on not crying, and the roof of her mouth hurt. She couldn’t tell why her brother was suddenly being so nice to her.
    “Thanks,” Finny said.
    “Mom’s just so pissed off. You know how she gets. Like the family’s future depends on it.”
    She hadn’t heard her brother criticize their parents before. She stayed quiet, waiting to