Shackled by Tom Leveen Read Free Book Online Page B

my feet, making it feel like I was walking through a swimming pool. The same sensation as I’d had yesterday at the Hole in the Wall.
    â€œPelly?” David called. In a moment he had fallen into step with me. “What’s up?”
    â€œWhat’re you doing?” I said, my voice low and tight.
    â€œUm . . . hanging out at the park?”
    â€œStop it.” I paused and looked up at him. “What are you really doing?”
    David’s body sagged. He sort of snorted. “Trying to cheer you up, actually.”
    â€œBy teaching me karate?”
    â€œWing chun.”
    â€œWhatever. I don’t want to be cheered up , all right? Life sucks, and that’s it. All the swinging in the world won’t change that.”
    â€œOr bring her back,” David said.
    â€œ Or bring her back, that’s right!” I said. Then I blinked. “Wait, what’s that supposed to mean? What are you saying?”
    â€œNothing,” David said. He shook his head, eyes averted. Then he glared at me. “I just thought it had been a bad couple days for you, is all. And maybe you’d want to get out of your head for a while.”
    â€œThere’s no getting out of my head,” I said, crossing my arms and staring down at the concrete.
    â€œClearly,” David said, and the sharpness in his voice startled me. “Jesus, Pelly. You know, I don’t even know why I bothered. You ask me for help, which I then give you, and then—and then this. This is what I get.”
    â€œI’ll give you gas money—”
    â€œWhat the hell, are you kidding me?” David’s eyes bugged out, and he took several paces away from me as if he needed the room to use his long arms to gesture more effectively. “ Gas money? How about just taking it easy for a minute? How about, I don’t know, smiling ?”
    â€œI don’t see anything funny here,” I said.
    â€œWell that sure makes two of us.” David turned and looked out at the playground for a minute, then began walking toward the truck without waiting for me. “Let’s just go.”
    I followed David, thinking, Good work, Pelly. If “bitch” was an Olympic event, you’d be a medalist. I snapped my rubber band till my wrist was red. My calves tingled in anticipation of being bled, of releasing the tension and switching my brain off.
    Neither of us said anything as David drove us to the Hole in the Wall. He turned the radio on, a little loud, somethingplaying Top 40. Then when we pulled into the dirt parking lot, my body stiffened in the seat and I sucked in a breath.
    â€œWhat now?” David said.
    I shook my head. Stared at the entrance. Even in broad daylight the building I’d come to appreciate as a home away from home looked like an ancient dungeon, waiting to consume me.
    â€œI don’t know if I can go back in there,” I said. My stomach felt the same way it did a few years back when I started ditching school. Cramped and fluid. My chest constricted, my breath quick and tight. I swallowed and shivered, hearing the creep’s keys jingling in my head.
    David didn’t say anything for a minute. I saw him shaking his head a little. Then he said, “Guess you better call out sick, then.”
    With that, he got out of his truck and shut the door, heading into the Hole. I watched him go, feeling absolutely useless and stupid and petrified. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t dig out my phone, or get out of the car and walk home, and I sure couldn’t go to work.
    So when David reappeared from the Hole a few minutes later and walked back to the truck, I assumed it was to tell me to get the hell out of it. Go walk home, or come in and go to work, but definitely and certainly get out of his truck.
    He climbed in, his mouth drawn tight. “Home?” he asked.
    â€œWhat are you . . . what did—”
    â€œTold Eli you were sick and