The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson Read Free Book Online Page A

in the store if I asked.
    We land on our bench of choice by Maria’s Italian Deli, where I’ve been chief lasagna maker every summer since I was fourteen. I start up again tomorrow. The sun has burst into millions of pieces, which have landed all over Main Street. It’s a gorgeous day. Everything shines except my guilty heart.
    “Sarah, I have to tell you something.”
    A worried look comes over her. “Sure.”
    “Something happened with Toby the other night.” Her worry has turned into something else, which is what I was afraid of. Sarah has an ironclad girlfriend code of conduct regarding guys. The policy is sisterhood before all else.
    “Something like something? Or something like something ?” Her eyebrow has landed on Mars.
    My stomach churns. “Like something... we kissed.” Her eyes go wide and her face twists in disbelief, or perhaps it’s horror. This is the face of my shame, I think, looking at her. How could I have kissed Toby? I ask myself for the thousandth time.
    “Wow,” she says, the word falling like a rock to the ground. She’s making no attempt to hold back her disdain. I bury my head in my hands, assume the crash position—I shouldn’t have told her.
    “It felt right in the moment, we both miss Bails so much, he just gets it, gets me, he’s like the only one who does... and I was drunk.” I say all this to my jeans.
    “Drunk?” She can’t contain her surprise. I hardly ever even have a beer at the parties she drags me to. Then in a softer voice, I hear, “Toby’s the only one who gets you?”
    Uh-oh.
    “I didn’t mean that,” I say, lifting my head to meet her eyes, but it’s not true, I did mean it, and I can tell from her expression she knows it. “Sarah.”
    She swallows, looks away from me, then quickly changes the topic back to my disgrace. “I guess it does happen. Grief sex is kind of a thing. It was in one of those books I read.” I still hear the judgment in her voice, and something more now too.
    “We didn’t have sex,” I say. “I’m still the last virgin standing.”
    She sighs, then puts her arm around me, awkwardly, as if she has to. I feel like I’m in a headlock. Neither of us has a clue how to deal with what’s not being said, or what is.
    “It’s okay, Len. Bailey would understand.” She sounds totally unconvincing. “And it’s not like it’s ever going to happen again, right?”
    “Of course not,” I say, and hope I’m not lying.
    And hope I am.
    ----
    Everyone has always said I look like Bailey,
    but I don’t.
    I have gray eyes to her green,
    an oval face to her heart-shaped one,
    I’m shorter, scrawnier, paler,
    flatter, plainer, tamer.
    All we shared is a madhouse of curls
    that I imprison in a ponytail
    while she let hers rave
    like madness
    around her head.
    I don’t sing in my sleep
    or eat the petals off flowers
    or run into the rain instead of out of it.
    I’m the unplugged-in one,
    the side-kick sister,
    tucked into a corner of her shadow.
    Boys followed her everywhere;
    they filled the booths at the restaurant
    where she waitressed,
    herded around her at the river.
    One day, I saw a boy come up behind her
    and pull a strand of her long hair.
    I understood this—
    I felt the same way.
    In photographs of us together,
    she is always looking at the camera,
    and I am always looking at her.
----
    (Found on a folded-up piece of paper half buried in pine needles on the trail to the Rain River)

chapter 8
    I AM SITTING at Bailey’s desk with St. Anthony: Patron of Lost Things.
    He doesn’t belong here. He belongs on the mantel in front of The Half Mom where I’ve always kept him, but Bailey must’ve moved him, and I don’t know why. I found him tucked behind the computer in front of an old drawing of hers that’s tacked to the wall—the one she made the day Gram told us our mother was an explorer (of the Christopher Columbus variety).
    I’ve drawn the curtains, and though I want to, I won’t let myself peek out the window to