Tangled by Carolyn Mackler Read Free Book Online Page B

stayed up last night until one, messing around on the web and drinking too much Jack and Coke. Anythingto get my mind off what was going to happen today.
    I kicked aside my sheets and trudged down the hall to take a leak. My dad and I are the only people who live here so it’s a guys’ bathroom all the way. We rarely put the seat down. The mirror is flecked with toothpaste. The tub has a permanent crud ring. We even keep a container of Vaseline in the medicine cabinet.
    A few times a year, my dad hires a cleaning lady. But besides her, and besides Natalie, I can’t remember the last female who came upstairs. My mom and brother live in Rochester, a half hour from here. That’s how we got divided up when my parents divorced three years ago. In the beginning, my mom used to pick me up for her custody weekends. But then I got my license and started driving into Rochester by myself. These days, I tend to skip visits, especially if I have a wrestling meet or a ball game.
    I splashed my face with water. My eyes were bloodshot and my face was pale. I looked like hell. Shit, I felt like hell. This is pretty much how it’d been since Coach Ritter pulled me into his office two weeks ago and told me about the ceremony.
    Today, on what would have been Natalie’s birthday, the school was having a ceremony for her, putting up a plaque and everything. I saw the plaque on Wednesday,when the principal called a bunch of us down to the auditorium to review the specifics of the program. The cheerleaders would kick it off. Then the principal explained how Natalie’s parents and older brother would come onstage. They’d do a slide show accompanied by Natalie’s favorite playlist. After that, I was supposed to go up to the podium, say a few words about Natalie, and lead everyone to the English corridor, where they’d unveil the plaque.
    After the principal explained everything, he hoisted the plaque out of a wooden crate and held it up for all of us to see. It was bronze and big, much bigger than I’d imagined. On the left side, it said:
     
    I N MEMORY OF N ATALIE A ILEEN B IRCH
    D EVOTED DAUGHTER
    D EVOTED SISTER
    D EVOTED FRIEND
    B ELOVED MEMBER OF THE
    B ROCKPORT H IGH S CHOOL COMMUNITY
     
    On the other side, beneath a pair of pom-poms, they had a picture of Natalie. It was taken last fall, before she cut her hair. She’d chopped it up to her ears at the end of October. I only remember that because we werein one of our breakups. She was mad because I bailed on some surprise dinner for her brother. But then I ran into her at a Halloween party. I went with a few guys from wrestling and a carload of cute sophomore girls. At some point, I tweaked Natalie’s cat ears and whispered, “I liked your hair better long.” By the time we got back together, she was growing it out again.
    We all sat there in the auditorium, staring at the plaque. The cheerleaders started crying and wrapping their arms around each other. That’s what they did for the entire month after the accident. You’d see clumps of them in the hallway, bawling into tissues. As I reread the plaque, I was frozen in my seat. I’m not a crier, but I could feel a lump in my throat. I used to talk to that girl five times a day, I kept thinking. I knew what her tits felt like, how her skin smelled. I had sex with her, for God’s sake.
    So now, here I am, two weeks later. The big day. I downed a couple aspirin and stepped into the shower. As I was drying off, I could hear my dad hollering from his bed. Something about my fucking alarm. I must have forgotten to switch it off when I woke up. My dad is a sheriff who works the first platoon, the night shift. He goes to sleep at six and has threatened to kill me if I disturb him while I’m getting ready for school.
    I wrapped my towel around my waist and sprinted back to my room, where I pounded the off button on my clock. Then I pulled on some boxers and dug through my closet for my suit. Coach said I should wear one today, out of