The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen Read Free Book Online

Sassafras do?” Emily asked. “Community service? Fundraising?”
    Stella laughed. “We weren’t that kind of group. Let me get the yearbooks.” She tossed her pizza crust into the box, then left the kitchen. She swished back in minutes, possibly the only person in the world who knew where to find her high school yearbooks without digging through closets or calling her parents. “Here we are.” She set a green and silver book emblazoned with the words HOME OF THE FIGHTING CATS! on the table in front of Emily, then opened it. “That’s Sassafras, with your mother in the middle, of course. We held court on the front steps of the school every morning before classes. There’s your mother at homecoming. There she is as our prom queen. There’s Sawyer on the soccer team.”
    Sawyer shook his head. “I rarely played.”
    Stella cut her eyes at him. “That’s because you didn’t want to risk hurting that face.”
    “A valid excuse.”
    Stella turned the next page. “And there’s Julia.”
    It was a photo of her eating lunch by herself on the top row of the bleachers on the football field. That was Julia’s domain. Before school, at lunch, when she skipped classes, sometimes even at night, that was her safe place.
    “Look how long your hair was! And it was all pink!” Emily said, then looked closer. “Are you wearing black lipstick?”
    “Yes.”
    “No one knew what to think of Julia back then,” Stella said.
    Julia smiled and shook her head. “I was harmless.”
    “To other people, maybe,” Sawyer murmured, and Julia automatically pulled her long sleeves farther down her arms.
    “Julia’s father sent her to boarding school after our sophomore year,” Stella told Emily, and Julia turned back to them. “She didn’t come back for a long time. And when she did, no one recognized her.”
    “I did,” Sawyer said.
    Stella rolled her eyes. “Of course you did.”
    Emily was poring over the yearbook now, flipping through pages, stopping every time she came across a photo of her mother. “Look!” she said. “Mom is wearing her charm bracelet! This one!” Emily held up her wrist.
    Julia found herself staring at Emily’s profile, a familiar yearning in her heart. Without thinking, she reached over and pushed some of Emily’s hair out of her eyes. Emily didn’t seem to notice, but when Julia looked across the table, Sawyer and Stella were staring at her like she’d just grown another head.
    “Who is this with my mom?” Emily asked, pointing to an elegant dark-haired boy in a suit and bow tie. “He’s in a lot of pictures with her.”
    “That’s Logan Coffey,” Julia said.
    “ That’s who he was talking about.” Emily sat back and smiled. “I met a boy named Win Coffey today. He mentioned that his uncle was Logan Coffey. He seemed surprised that I didn’t know who he was.”
    Oh, hell , Julia thought. That can’t be good .
    “Was Logan Coffey her boyfriend?” Emily asked.
    “We all wondered. He and Dulcie denied it,” Julia said cautiously. “Basically, he was just a shy, mysterious boy your mother tried to coax out of his shell.”
    “Does he still live here? Do you think I could talk to him about my mom?”
    There was a conspicuous silence. No one wanted to tell her. Julia finally said, “Logan Coffey died a long time ago, sweetheart.”
    “Oh.” As if sensing the change in atmosphere, Emily reluctantly closed the book. “I guess I should get back home. Thank you for letting me look through the yearbook.”
    Stella waved her hand. “Take it with you. That was twenty pounds ago. I don’t need to be reminded.”
    “Really? Thank you!” When Emily stood, so did Julia. Julia walked her to the door and said good night, watching until Emily evaporated into the darkness under the canopy of trees next door.
    When Julia walked back in, Stella was standing there, her hands on her hips. “Okay, what’s going on?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Why are you acting that way around