Pretty Little Dead Girls by Mercedes M. Yardley Read Free Book Online

to keep it cool. Cool. He was going to keep it so extremely cool that—
    “Hey, Bryony, guess what? I’ve been invited to play at the station, wow, just out of the blue and this could be my big break so what do you think of that?” he said in one breath. He was fairly glowing, a nuclear bomb of joy.
    “Why, Eddie, that’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, and threw herself in his arms, a flurry of hair and ribbons and fuzzy teddy bear excitement. Eddie glanced over to see if Chad the Fish Guy was watching, and he was, wringing a nice bit of salmon too tightly in his hands. Eddie allowed himself to smile.
    Bryony pulled back. “So when are you going to go down?”
    Eddie shrugged, and Jasmine the guitar, slung over his shoulder, shrugged, as well. “I’m not certain, yet. I need to call them and set something up.”
    Bryony smiled. “Well, I for one am exceptionally proud of you. You write the most beautiful music, Eddie.” He blushed and she pressed forward. “You do . It’s exquisite and intricate and fairly drips with burden. You write the most joyful songs of heart wrenching loss that I have ever heard. I love to listen to you in the background while I work.”
    “You think all of my songs are about loss?”
    “Oh, aren’t they? I can’t hear the words over the crowd, just the melody. Am I wrong?”
    No, she wasn’t wrong. He just had never thought about it. He wrote songs about life, and if life includes loss, well then. Nobody ever mentioned it to him before. But then again, most people didn’t mention much to Eddie Warshouski. Ever. His cutting glances and unpleasant scowls served to keep himself well isolated from mainstream society. Or even the outer fringes of society. From everybody, really, and that was just how he liked it, usually. Or at least, that was how it had been, before Bryony and her cursed glittering eyes.
    Eddie’s life was a life of loss. Almost everything that he loved had been taken from him at one time or another. He almost felt as though he were the one that fate toyed with, as if it was his fault Bryony suffered. If he was created only to have things taken, then wouldn’t it make perfect sense that the young lady who would make him the happiest would be destined to fall in the most grisly manner imaginable? He felt he should apologize. He felt he should turn tail and run.
    “Eddie,” she said, and slipped her fragile hand into his. She had never done this before, and Eddie was instantly nervous. Would he hold it the right way? Did she want her thumb crossed over his, or his crossed over hers? Would he start to sweat, would it be unnatural, would the touch of his thick fingers send her into a tailspin of revulsion? What if they weren’t shaped right, or he wasn’t who she really wanted? Perhaps some other man with absolutely perfect hands was wandering the city, and she would try on hand after hand like Cinderella’s slipper until she found the one who fit, and—
    “Eddie, I like you very much, and I’m sorry for that.”
    Eddie, who was near to hyperventilating, looked at her sharply. “You what? And you’re, huh?”
    Bryony met his eyes briefly, and all of the ghosts and the demons, the horrors and the tremendous weight of her constant waiting rose up in a wave behind her, pressing down on him with so much force he felt he was sinking to the floor. It was too much, too much.
    Bryony looked away, and Eddie’s heart shivered again, one weak, shuddering spasm, and then it cheerfully fell back into its regular reggae rhythm.
    “I know about Rita, and I am sorry,” Bryony said. “I know how hard it is to be around me sometimes, for everybody, and I know it must be especially difficult for you. But I like you, you see, and I just want to be by you. I want to press my cheek against your jacket and see what your hair feels like. I love to listen to you play, and I pretend sometimes you wrote a song just for me. And all of this, it isn’t fair to you, and for that I feel