Perfectly Good White Boy by Carrie Mesrobian Read Free Book Online Page A

Her voice sounded so bad that it made me feel like crying, too. And I didn’t even really understand what she was saying. But she kept talking, looking at the hollow spot in my chest. It made me straighten up, square my shoulders so it wasn’t as noticeable.
    â€œAnd we’ll be able to see each other, again. When I come back home to visit. But we have to be thankful. And we have to let each other be free, because . . .”
    â€œHallie?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œLook at me, okay?”
    She looked up. And stopped talking. Finally. She’d been sounding like some shitty paper I’d write for English, where you just go on and on for the sake of the word count but not really saying anything.
    â€œSo, we’re done, then,” I said. “This is it.”
    â€œFor now,” she said. “It’s just geography. I want you to have your freedom. It’s your senior year, you know? But who can say where this might go, so . . .”
    Fuck geography. I’m leaving. Never coming back.
    â€œOkay, okay,” I said. “I get it.”
    I don’t get it.
    â€œYou could meet so many new people too, Sean. You have to believe that. We have so many opportunities right now, it’s crazy if we didn’t . . .”
    â€œI know,” I said. Then I kissed her. Like it would do any good, really. Like there was a point to it any more. But she kissed me back and that stopped the talking, which was weird but I wasn’t complaining and then the leaving her in the dust and driving off idea dissolved and things got to the point that we might do it again. Hallie was like that, sometimes, with sex. She just wanted it when she wanted it, the fact of which kept me in a constant state of semi-hardness since we’d first done it.
    And I swear, even having just done it, and having just broken up, even in the weird way Hallie was explaining it out to be, we would have fucked again. Except a bunch of cars showed up, kids coming to get wasted, and Hallie always freaked out about that, about anyone seeing her like that. So I drove her home and we didn’t say good-bye, but talk to you soon, something casual like that, like it was nothing.

    I drove around for a while before I went home. It was late, but I wasn’t tired. For some reason I decided to drive over to our old neighborhood. Our old house.
    It wasn’t a big house, but it was much bigger than the rental. We had a two-car garage, attached, and above it had been Brad’s room, where he could climb out his window to the backside of the garage and sneak out. He’d never let me do that when he still lived with us, but I did once he moved out, of course.
    The For Sale sign was still up; at least the notice from the sheriff wasn’t on the door anymore. The grass looked long and shaggy; there were those freebie rolled-up newspapers nobody ever read in a pile on the front step.
    I didn’t want to slow down, but I did anyway. Parked. Looked at the front living room, which had a curtain drawn shut across it. We always had that curtain shut, too. It looked like we could have still lived there, except the lawn wasn’t mowed and I’d always done that job. Not just because toward the end, my dad was too wasted to be trusted around machinery, cars or even something basic like a mower. But because I liked it, mowing. Liked those stripes on the grass, how much it made everything seem better than it was. You could look back at the whole lawn and see something. Progress. Change.
    Then I worried Eddie might see my car, me sitting here like some kind of stalker. I reversed and turned around so I wouldn’t have to pass his house, which was only four houses down, and headed back to the rental.
    No one was around when I walked in the door. Otis stood there, barking, his tail whacking against the wall. Dogs are idiots, sometimes, how they get so happy they hurt themselves. I petted Otis, gave him a treat from the little