Pictures of You by Juliette Caron Read Free Book Online Page B

it.
                  “Tember, are you okay? You don’t look too hot.” She eyed me up and down and frowned. Abby’s Depeche Mode tee and boxers were messy and wrinkled now. Last night’s dinner stuck to the lead singer’s face. It was something like three days since I’d showered. I didn’t even want to imagine how I must’ve smelled.
                  “I’m…surviving.” I laughed a nervous laugh. “Don’t worry about me. I can’t imagine how it must be for you to lose your mother and a child in the same year. How are you holding up?”
                  Hannah did look tired. Since the funeral she’d aged about ten years and for the first time ever she wasn’t wearing her signature Egyptian eyeliner.
                  “We all miss Abs terribly. I still can’t believe she’s gone.” Everyone in her family called her that, everyone except her grandfather who insisted she be called Abigail. “But we know she’s with Jesus now.”
                  I led her into the bedroom, dreading her reaction to the late grandma’s murdered headboard. Hannah was usually a cool, laid-back mom, but I’d annihilated a family heirloom.
                  “Oh September. What happened here?” A heavily ringed hand covered a gaping mouth.
                  I was going to tell the truth, I swear, but fear clung to me like a sticky shirt on a hot summer day. “Um, er, Abby did it.”
                  Great. Blame it on the dead person. Who was I becoming? Lying to my friend’s mom, skipping showers and work, binging on pizza and sugar. I used to be so with it. What was wrong with me? Where was the honest, trustworthy September we knew and loved?
                  “Abby what?”
                  “Abby did it. She was having this terrible nightmare. A headboard monster was attacking her. She kicked the crap out of the poor thing.” Oh, that was horrible! If I was going tell a lie, it may as well have been a good one. A headboard monster ?
                  “That was my mother’s headboard. My great grandfather built it for her when she was eleven. That just breaks my heart.”
                  I had to look away when Hannah’s eyes teared up again.
                  It took two hours to box up all of her things. I helped Hannah haul the headboard to the dumpster and load her car with Abby’s stuff. It nearly killed me when she drove away with it. It was almost like losing my friend all over again.
                  Much to my guilty relief, Hannah didn’t notice the missing CDs. She didn’t even ask about the scrapbooks and when I asked if I could keep Tiger, she shrugged and said, “Oh, of course.”
                  We’d also managed to fill up an entire box of Mary’s things. Abby’s other best friend. Apparently they borrowed each other’s stuff as much as we did. I threw the box in the back of the closet, wondering if I’d ever get around to returning it.
                  Hannah let me keep Abby’s posters up. After all, we adored most of the same bands. Aside from a few candy wrappers, eighty-seven cents and a moldy burrito (I found behind the hamper of all places), the room was empty.
                  Suddenly a surge of energy shot through me. I vacuumed Abby’s floor, wiped down the dusty walls and gave the windows a Windex shine. Next I pushed and pulled and tugged my furniture into the empty room. Seeing it bare was too painful. I’d rather see my own room vacant. She had the better room anyway, with two windows and a bigger closet. We’d fought over the room when we’d first moved in but quickly resolved it with three rounds of Paper, Rock, Scissors.
                  I worked up a sweat by the time I pulled my dresser in the room. When the last photo was hung—one of full-grown Abby riding one of