The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta Read Free Book Online Page B

secrets, partying together every night and then starting up again in the morning. This month they even got their periods at the same time, which was kind of freaky. What she needed was a breather, a little time to catch up on schoolwork, hang out with her dad, maybe go through some of the college material that kept arriving in the mail every day. Just a day or two to get her bearings, because sometimes she had a little trouble locating the boundary between the two of them, the place where Aimee left off and Jill began.
    *   *   *
    THEY WERE only a few blocks from school when the Prius pulled up silently beside them. It was one of those things that never used to happen to Jill but happened all the time now that she was hanging out with Aimee. The passenger window slid down, releasing a cloud of pot-scented reggae into the chilly November morning.
    “Hey, ladies,” Scott Frost called out. “What’s up?”
    “Not much,” Aimee replied. Her voice changed color when she talked to guys—it sounded deeper to Jill, infused with a teasing lilt that made even the most banal statements seem vaguely intriguing. “What’s up with you?”
    Adam Frost leaned in from the driver’s seat, his head staggered a few inches behind his brother’s, creating a kind of mini–Mount Rushmore effect. The Frost twins were famously handsome—identical dreadlocked slackers with square jaws, sleepy eyes, and the lithe bodies of the athletes they might have been if they hadn’t been wasted all the time. Jill was pretty sure they’d graduated the year before, but she still saw them a lot in school, mostly in the art room, though they never seemed to do any art. They just sat around like retired guys, observing the young strivers with an air of benevolent amusement. The drawing teacher, Ms. Coomey, seemed to enjoy their company, chatting and laughing with them while her students worked independently. She was around fifty, married, and overweight, but a rumor had nonetheless spread through the school that she and the Frost brothers sometimes got it on in the supply closet during her free periods.
    “Hop in,” Adam called out. He had a row of piercings in his right eyebrow, which was the main way people distinguished him from Scott. “Let’s go for a ride.”
    “We have to go to school,” Jill muttered, speaking more to Aimee than the twins.
    “Fuck that,” said Scott. “Come hang out at our house, it’ll be fun.”
    “What kind of fun?” Aimee inquired.
    “We have a Ping-Pong table.”
    “And some Vicodin,” Adam added.
    “Now you’re talking.” Aimee turned to Jill with a hopeful smile. “Whaddaya think?”
    “I don’t know.” Jill felt the heat of embarrassment spreading across her face. “I’ve been missing a lot of school lately.”
    “Me too,” Aimee said. “One more day’s not gonna matter.”
    It was a reasonable point. Jill glanced at the twins, who were nodding in unison to “Buffalo Soldier,” sending out a subliminal message of encouragement.
    “I don’t know,” she said again.
    Aimee released a pointed sigh, but Jill remained motionless. She couldn’t understand what was holding her back. The Chemistry test was already under way. The rest of the day would just be a footnote to her failure.
    “Whatever.” Aimee opened the door and climbed into the backseat, staring at Jill the whole time. “You coming?”
    “That’s okay,” Jill told her. “You guys go ahead.”
    “You sure?” Scott asked as Aimee shut the door. He seemed genuinely disappointed.
    Jill nodded and Scott’s window hummed shut, slowly obscuring his beautiful face. The sealed-up Prius didn’t move for a second or two, and neither did Jill. A sharp feeling of regret took hold of her as she stared at the tinted glass.
    “Wait!” she called out.
    Her voice sounded loud in her own ears, almost desperate, but they must not have heard her, because the car lurched into motion just as she was reaching for the door, and moved