Love You Hate You Miss You by Elizabeth Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

early every morning because his company is in talks with another company in the UK and he’s having all these teleconferences. Take shower. Get dressed. Look in mirror. Still freakishly tall. Hair still the shade of red that makes people (usually old) say things like “My, it looks like someone lit a match on your head!” I miss you telling those people to watch out or they’d get burned.
    Mom calls out that we’re “almost very late” anddrives me to school. So far this week I have learned that Mom:
    —hates chairing the curriculum committee she’s on because the proposed changes won’t attract more students into art classes.
    —is “very proud” of my being a vegetarian and has ordered some “yummy” cookbooks. I told her she could let me know how they tasted. She laughed. I can’t remember the last time I made anyone do that.
    School is locker, class, no time for locker, class, rush to locker, barely make it to class—you get the idea. Of course there’s still lunch too. The past few days I’ve caught Corn Syrup looking at me a couple of times. For someone allowed to bask in Beth’s glow (ha!), Corn Syrup usually looks pretty miserable. Beth has probably gotten angry with her for having split ends or something.
    After school I get a ride home with either Dad or Mom. Because the UK thing is going pretty well, Dad has been able to make it so he works at home in the afternoon every other week. This week he’s home, so he picks me up.
    Things Dad likes to talk about:
    —Tennis
    —How my day was
    —Tennis
    I’m starting to think the reason my parents are so in love is that they both realize they are so boring no one else could stand being with them.
    At home I continue the excitement and work on homework. My grades are good so far, but I’m not sure I get the point of the whole studying thing. Take English, for instance. We’re reading The Scarlet Letter and all anyone talks about in class is what’s-her-name and her big red A .
    I find myself wondering what Pearl’s going to be like when she grows up.
    Oh, and get this—Mom and Dad got rid of my computer. It’s so I can “focus on my studies,” but hello, I was the one in Pinewood, and I sat through all the lectures about the “dangers” of “falling back in with old friends and habits.” Anyway, now I have to type my papers and do research in the study, which (of course) is where whoever has taken me home has camped out. I thought about telling Mom and Dad that the only person I ever talked to online was you, but the computer in the study is nicer. Mine always sounded like it was powered by a hamster running around in one of those little wheels.
    After I study, it’s dinnertime. Mom and Dad cook together, and you’d think I’d get a break then, but nope. I “help” by stirring stuff. There was a weird moment theother day when I was eating baby carrots and hoping my arm wasn’t going to fall off from stirring some rice dish and Mom said, “You know, I could never get you to touch a carrot when you were younger.”
    I said, “Well, I guess things changed when my teeth came in or something,” and she looked shocked for a second, and then she looked sort of pissed off. Like it’s my fault she never noticed what I ate before? She was grating cheese, and she slammed the block of it down on the counter, saying, “I was simply trying to talk to you. There isn’t any need to—”
    “What? Point out the obvious? You didn’t even know I was a vegetarian.”
    Her face fell, and she picked up the cheese again, staring at it and blinking hard. Dad touched Mom’s arm and said, “Grace,” gently, sharing a look with her before he turned to me and said, “So, how’s that rice looking?”
    “Kind of gloopy,” I said.
    He smiled, and then she did, but I could tell I’d rattled Mom, that she’d realized that not only did she not know that her kid was around or that she was drinking, but that she didn’t even know I ate carrots. And