Subway Girl by Adela Knight Read Free Book Online Page B

story like that, and that he’d call as soon as his meeting was over.” I could feel my face drain of color. The restaurant started to tilt and my stomach threatened to spill everything I’d eaten the last four days all over the floor. “Hey, are you okay?”
    “Yes. Of course.”
    “Look, Julia, I’m really sorry. I don’t mean to be a dick. You seem a lot nicer than most of the girls he drags through here. But this is what Rivers does. He doesn’t do relationships. He does girls, if you get my drift—”
    “Yeah, yeah, asswipe, she gets the drift.” Jenny laid her hand on my arm. “You ready to go?”
    I nodded. “Just one second.” I pulled a piece of paper from my purse and wrote:

    “Will you give this to him?” I handed the paper to Jesse. “You know, maybe.” I shrugged a shoulder.
    “I don’t think it’ll make a difference, but I’ll give it to him.” He smiled and I gave him a quick smile in return.
    Jenny and I ended up grabbing a burger on the way home. We splurged on a taxi. I wasn’t ready to ride the subway yet.

“ Y ou have to go to the party. We always go to Frank and Jeff’s Halloween party.” I thought Jenny was going to stomp her foot at me. She was whining like a two year-old. “It’s one of the best parties of the year!”
    “I don’t want to go. Besides, you have Mark to go with this year. You won’t even know I’m not there.”
    “Ah, yes I will know. I’ll be worried about you here alone the entire night.”
    “I’ll be fine, Jenny,” I sighed. “I don’t want to dress up and go to a party where people think they have free reign to bump into and cop a feel just because they’re wearing a mask and I won’t know who they are.”
    “It’s been a month.”
    “I know and I don’t want to talk about it. This isn’t about Rivers.”
    “Okay. Whatever.”

    “Your parents having their normal holiday torture event this year?” I looked at Jenny and smiled.
    “Yes and Yes,” she said around a huge bite of pizza.
    “Last year you swore you’d ‘never go to another one of those horrible parties again.’ ” I imitated her voice.
    Jenny rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Well, try telling that to my mom and grandma. Talk about guilt treatment! They’ve perfected it.”
    “You love it and you know it.” I bumped my knee into her.
    “What about you? Are you going home?”
    “Oh, nope. My folks and sister are coming here for Thanksgiving this year.”
    “Uh-oh. I don’t like that look on your face. And what happened to your dad saying he’d never venture into the big city?”
    “The face is because I don’t want to be cooped up with them in my tiny apartment for a week listening to my dad bitch and my mom trying to placate him while my sister sits on her ass, with her earphones in her ears, texting.” I tossed my pizza on my plate and wiped my hands on a napkin. “And I have no idea why my dad has decided to brave the big bad city.”
    “Sounds like fun. Maybe I’ll stay here and you can go to my family’s dinner.” Jenny smiled.
    I sighed. “I have to get back to the office. I have a meeting.” I pushed away from the table.  “I’ll see you later.”
    Thanksgiving morning dawned a beautiful sunny day. Cotton candy clouds floated across the sky. I lay on the couch and watched them through the window. But even though the sun looked beautiful shining in the sky, it was an illusion. The sun didn’t warm the air. I could feel the cold air seep through the old windows of my apartment and I pulled the quilt tighter against me. And I thought, again, how nice it’d be to wake up pressed against someone, their body heat warming me. Instead I woke up every morning wrapped around my body pillow and went to bed at night with my vibrator.

    “Hey, Julia, dance with me.” Walt held his hand out to me. I place mine in his and he led me to the dance floor.
    Walt was probably in his sixties, older than my dad. He was still a good looking guy and had made it