The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh Read Free Book Online Page A

bag. As I worked my way around the room, I uncovered a stack of Teen Pussy magazines, which told me all I needed to know about the trailer’s former tenants. I’d found a Playboy once in my dad’s closet and was struck by how fake it all looked—the boobs, the blond hair, the poses, the ridiculous ice cream parlor backdrop. But I’d never seen anything like Teen Pussy . The models looked startlingly real, like girls you might see at school. Textbooks and pom-poms and stuffed animals lay scattered in the background to give the illusion that the girls were posing in their own bedrooms. Then it occurred to me that maybe they were. I looked more closely at their expressions. Daniel stood up to stretch, and I quickly chucked the magazines in the trash, not wanting him to see me with them.
    We finished the living room without saying much. It was quiet, just the rustle of our work and the wind lisping through the window screen. I wished we had a radio. Or a fan. Or gas masks. Or that Daniel and I could have a normal conversation. I couldn’t glance at him without reliving our kiss, and I was starting to think maybe we should acknowledge it and move on. Laugh it off. Start over and get to know each other. Surely he was thinking about it, too. Unless the encounter hadn’t been as memorable for him as it was for me. In that case, it was better not to bring it up, to let my insecurity fester in silence.
    â€œYou hungry yet?” Daniel asked.
    My watch showed just after eleven. I didn’t feel like eating, but I was ready to get out of the trailer for a while. “Sure,” I said.
    The air outside was fresh and cedar-scented. We carried our lunches over to the foundation of the main house and sat in the shade. I watched him eat his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in four bites.
    â€œSo this was your grandparents’ place?” he asked, wiping his mouth with his hand.
    â€œThey were the last ones to live out here before my grandpa built the house we live in now.”
    â€œSuch a lonely feeling out here,” he said. “Something about abandoned places, I guess. I’d hate to live in that trailer, looking out at these empty buildings every day.”
    â€œI don’t think they spent much time looking out the window. Not with the curtains nailed shut.”
    â€œTrue. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
    He tore open the mini bag of Doritos I’d packed in his lunch sack and bit a huge chunk out of his apple. I watched him eat in silence as long as I could stand it.
    â€œYou said you remembered me.”
    â€œYeah,” he said, taking a moment to chew and swallow. “From school. I used to see you on my way to first period. You were always helping that friend of yours with her locker.”
    A lump rose in my throat. Few people referred to Cheri as my friend. It was always “that ______ girl.” Fill in the blank: poor, retarded, dead .
    â€œI’m sorry about what happened. She seemed like a nice kid.”
    â€œShe was,” I said.
    Daniel stood up, observing my uneaten lunch without comment. “I guess we should get back to work.” We made our way back to the trailer, grasshoppers zinging through the weeds in front of us. I should’ve been relieved that he didn’t remember the night at the bonfire, but I wasn’t. I tried to think of an explanation that had nothing to do with me. Maybe he had kissed so many girls that their faces blurred together after a while. I didn’t really believe that, though. I’d never seen him with a girl at school.
    â€œHey,” he said. “Let’s rock-paper-scissors to see who gets to clean the fridge.” I lost, with the fleeting consolation of his hand closing over my fist. Paper covers rock.
    I was in no hurry to get to the kitchen, so I started on the empty back room instead. It was dark, but I didn’t want to bother asking Daniel to help with the curtains if I