Our Chemical Hearts by Krystal Sutherland Read Free Book Online Page A

stood at the end of my street, beckoning me into the blackness. From that distance I couldn’t see their face, only the outline of their strangely wide shoulders. It wasn’t the silhouette of something I wanted to follow into the dark. When I didn’t move, Grace exaggerated her summoning motion so that she was using her whole arm and her cane to call me to her. I jogged over, zipping up my jacket against the cool. As I drew closer, I could see she was still dressed in her typical boyish attire, topped with a football jacket that was so large on her, she could’ve worn it as a dress. Had she driven home to get it and then walked all the way back here?
    â€œDo you have a bus pass?” she called when I was within earshot. Not hello. Never hello.
    â€œNot on me, no, sorry.”
    â€œThat’s okay. I’ll be your sugar mama and pay your fare.”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    â€œAs long as we’re not, like, leaving the state or anything.”
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    And then instead of setting off back down my street, Grace turned and started making her way into the long grass where the street ended.
    â€œAre you serious?” I said. “There’s a gully down there. It’s a storm-water drain.”
    â€œShortcut” is all Grace said, plunging farther into the darkness.
    â€œI mean, are you okay with your leg and everything?” I shouted after her, not knowing if it was politically correct or not to even
mention
that I’d
noticed
she walked with a limp. “The ground is really uneven!”
    â€œShortcut!”
    Grace started swatting the grass away with her cane then, like she was an explorer hacking her way through a jungle. I followed the trail she cut through the greenery, keeping close enough to her so that if she stumbled I’d be able to catch her, but—even though her limp was more pronounced—she never did.
    We followed the drain for ten minutes, making small talk about the newspaper, until the gully spat us out on the main road near a bus stop. We sat and waited for a bus in fluorescent light, me kind of expecting it to be a Greyhound that would take us halfway across the country, but the one Grace hailed was the one that went into the city. She paid my fare like she said she would, and then we sat in the disabled seating section, which Grace said was (and I quote) “the one perk of being a cripple.”
    The city at nighttime was spectacular. I’m all for mountains and forests and glass-clear rivers, but there is something about the million burning lights of a city in the dark that just gets to me. Maybe because it reminds me of the galaxy.
    When we got off the bus, Grace led me straight to the closest convenience store.
    â€œWe require snacks,” she said. “My treat.”
    â€œYou are too kind to me. Keep taking care of me like this and I’ll become a kept man.” I chose some M&M’s and Coke. Grace picked a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips (which—I know it sounds weird—just totally
suited
her), a Vitaminwater, and a loaf of cheap white bread. Then we walked. We walked for so long, I started to think that this
was
the hanging out and that we didn’t actually have an actual destination, but Grace wouldn’t let me eat my snack yet, despite my protests.
    Eventually she came to a stop at a tall iron fence with a thick hedge growing on the other side and said, “Ta-da.”
    â€œIt’s a . .  . fence. I mean, it’s a very nice fence. And I admire the workmanship. But it’s a fence.”
    â€œWhat’s behind the fence is what we came for.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œI am so pleased you asked. Behind this fence is one of this city’s best-kept secrets. Did you know that before the subway was built, a steam train line used to run right through the business district?”
    â€œI did not, but now that you