Red Sun by Raven St. Pierre Read Free Book Online Page A

was definitely going to suck.  My temporary stay in Hell just became even more unbearable than before. 
                  That night, my dad went to bed early, so I entertained myself by talking to Tarik.  “Maybe I can pretend to be allergic to something in the shop and they’ll say I can’t work there.”
                  Tarik was silent for a moment.  “You have to be the dumbest person on Earth.  What do you have against not being a loser?  I’ve never seen somebody who goes through the stuff you do to keep from having to work.  Besides, you owe me $150 for the concert, so you need this job.”
                  “I thought you said it was $75?”
                  “It was, but you owe me for my ticket too cause it was your fault I had to miss it,” he explained.
                  “Shut up and help me think of something.”  I paced back and forth in my room.
                  Tarik sighed into the phone. 
                  “What now?”  I asked.
                  “Nothing,” he lied. 
                  “Since when have you held your tongue?  Just say it!”  I demanded harshly.
                  “It’s just you, man.  You so lazy !  That’s real unattractive in a girl.”  I pictured him making the face I knew he was making on the other end.  It’s the one where it looks like he just smelled something real funky.
                  “Whatever.  I don’t care what you think!”
                  He laughed a little.  “Well, you need to care what somebody thinks cause slacker ain’t a good look on you.”
                  I rolled my eyes and took a seat on the edge of my bed.  It didn’t matter what Tarik said; I’d come up with something without his help.  He interrupted my thoughts.  “So, is it as bad out there as you thought it would be?”
                  I cleared my throat.  “Worse.”  Back home I was no social butterfly or anything, but out here, I was cut off from everything and everyone.  The thought of spending day in and day out at some tired old flower shop made me want to hurl myself into the river.
                  “What’s it like?”  He asked, genuinely curious.
                  “Hot, boring, and green; I’m basically living in the middle of the forest and you already know how I feel about that.”  Tarik laughed.  “But you’d be proud of me; I actually went walking today.”
                  “Your dad must’ve paid you or something.”
                  “No, stupid.  But it wasn’t because I wanted to.  It was hot as wax outside and even hotter than that in here.”
                  “So, you just stood outside, or you for real went walking?”  He was apparently having a hard time fathoming me doing such a thing.
                  “I walked!  All the way to the river.” 
                  “Now I know you’re lying,” Tarik proclaimed.  “You definitely don’t do water.”
                  I laughed.  “I didn’t get in it or anything, just went down there and….. watched .”
                  “Watched?  Watched what?”  Tarik inquired.  I wanted to tell him about my Mohican, mainly because I just wanted to talk about him, but I didn’t feel like having Tarik judge me.  So, instead I came up with a convincing lie.
                  “I watched the boats and the ducks and stuff.  You know, the usual stuff you see on a river.”
                  If he’d been interested enough in our conversation, he would’ve known I wasn’t telling the truth, but he was texting his girl too while we talked.  When he ignored me for an entire minute, I ended our conversation and told him I’d call him tomorrow.  Now I was bored and lonely again.  Its