Seven Ways to Lose Your Heart by Tiffany Truitt Read Free Book Online

once we’ve run out of stories about the devil twins, the conversation always turns to how boring and lackluster she thinks my life is. Her comments are never mean-natured, at least not intentionally. I know it’s because she worries. Thinks I need a giant kick in the life-living butt. One long Robin Williams speech from Dead Poets Society .
    I stare at Kennedy’s text, choosing to ignore Grandma’s question about Jason. I didn’t know how to talk to Grandma about the weirdness with Jason. He called this afternoon, and we made plans to go to dinner at Café Moka, a coffee-themed restaurant, tomorrow night. Maybe that meant things would get better. Maybe that meant I wouldn’t have to keep avoiding Grandma’s questions about him.
    It was easier to think about Kennedy. Why was he texting me? No amount of AP lit classes could have prepared me to decipher the meaning behind it. Sure, we actually exchanged words earlier in the day, but that was a real slow-news-day kind of event in the grand scheme of things. Or at least that’s how I saw it. He made some comments about my picture, and I scrolled through his music collection wondering what kind of porn he liked to watch. Hardly mountain-moving stuff, and that’s what seems like needed to happen to cause this occurrence. Of course, it was the first conversation we’ve had in more than a decade, so maybe it meant something?
    How the heck did he even get my number?
    As I stare down at Kennedy’s name on my screen, my face instantly flushes red. I can’t help but think of that moment in the darkroom: me holding his iPhone in my hand riffling through his music selection like I was discovering whether he was a tits or ass type of man. There was something so oddly intimate about the incident that I have to tear my eyes away from my phone at just the memory. Something about staring at his name keeps bringing forth images that would make for a great article in Cosmo .
    God, I need to go for a run.
    Grandma raises an eyebrow, and I clear my throat. “No, not Jason. Just a kid from my photography class,” I try to reply casually, but it only comes off sounding like a child whose hand got caught in the jar full of smutty-doodles.
    If only Grandma had been having one of her good nights, I’d be safely asleep by now. I’d have missed Kennedy’s text and wouldn’t have to figure out what to do in response, and I certainly wouldn’t be getting stared down by a seventy-year-old woman who once literally stole candy from a baby because her sugar was low, citing that the baby would have many more opportunities to get candy in her lifetime, and she would most certainly die if she didn’t get that candy right that moment.
    But Grandma wasn’t having one of her good nights. Instead, she had been attacked by another coughing fit. They were getting worse and happening with more frequency, and despite much insisting that I just go to bed and let her be, I never could.
    Grandma’s eyebrow goes higher like it’s a flag signaling the fall of Fort Sumter. “So, they allow kids in community classes now? And said kid is texting you at nearly midnight? Man, they weren’t kidding on the news about that whole generational gap thing,” she jokes drily. She knows full well the answers to her own questions. Grandma’s always been particularly skilled at interrogation. She worked for the army during the Vietnam War. When I think of her during that time in her life, I tend to imagine dark rooms with giant lamps and poor POWs shitting their pants while she crocheted a full sweater set.
    “And what does said child genius want at such an hour?” she continues.
    I sigh. Grandma’s one-eyebrow-flag-raising has now turned into a two-gun salute. Both of them all the way up, nearly crawling into her hairline. There’s no getting out of this one. “It’s just some boy. Kennedy,” I spit out as fast as I can. I return my eyes to my phone. Somehow it’s now easier to look there than at Grandma. I