The Year of My Miraculous Reappearance by Catherine Ryan Hyde Read Free Book Online

yet. But it will.” He still didn't come out.
    “I brought you a birthday present.”
    He grabbed the fender of the car and pulled himself out, and jumped up. He had a big bruise on the side of his face, the whole side, all the way from his forehead down. It looked puffy, and it was more than one color.
    “Snake. What happened to your face?”
    “Nothing.” He was looking at the bag in my hand. The plain brown bag.
    I should have wrapped it, I thought, and besides, it was a dumb present, and he'd hate it, and I shouldn't have announced it like that, like it was a big deal, something to look forward to. And then I thought that I'd had lots of days where nothing happened, and it never left a bruise like that on me, and I wondered what happened for real, and why I hadn't brought a better present to make up for it. He reached his hand out and I gave him the bag.
    “It's just little,” I said.
    “Yeah, but you remembered. You came all the way down here.”
    He stuck his hand into the bag and pulled out the fuzzy dice.
    “They're for our new rearview mirror.”
    “Cool.” He stuck his head inside the car and hung them by the little string, and then he came back out and we both admired them from the front. “That looks pretty cool.”
    He didn't seem disappointed. He had this look on his face. I didn't know quite what it meant. I'd never seen it before. It made me think he was either going to cry or try to kiss me, but then he didn't do either one.
    I said, “So, when's the party?”
    The look went away. “Never.”
    “Never? If I just turned fifteen, I'd have a party.”
    He picked up a wrench and slid back under the car. “I don't like to have anybody over.”
    “Why not?”
    “I just don't, that's all.”
    He didn't sound like he wanted to talk anymore, so I sat in the passenger seat for a while and closed my eyes and thought about cruising down the road with the window open and all that wind in my face, and Bill on my lap, holding tight to me. Maybe headed for the Grand Canyon.
    Then I said goodbye to Snake, and he said goodbye, but he didn't come out from under the car to say it.
    I bought one of those big giant beers with my lunch money on the way home, even though I had to ride a mile out of my way to that store where the guy doesn't care how old you are, just so long as you're old enough to pay for it.
    I drank it in the alley behind the store, because I knew itwould make it easier to go home. Well, it made it easier to be home, but pedaling there on my bike was hard. That street had never seemed so long before.
    The more I got into my first year of high school, the more it made me lonely. I don't think I'd ever been lonely before. Or maybe I always had, and I just hadn't known it yet. I didn't have any friends at school, and I didn't really bother to make any. I'd be gone soon anyway, and nobody really acted like they were dying to know me.
    I had this feeling like something was missing. It reminded me of that dream where you get to school with no clothes on, but it wasn't that, it was something else. I wanted to talk to Snake but he was kind of quiet, and as soon as school let out, he was gone to Uncle Ted's.
    After school I rode around on my bike, to keep from going home. The park sounded like a good idea, until I got there. Then I pedaled across the highway overpass and watched cars shoot by underneath. But only for a minute. Wherever I went, it felt like the wrong place, and I needed to be somewhere else. After a while that made me tired, so I went home, which was worse.
    I didn't have anything to drink, and Mom was sitting right by her only bottle and not passed out yet. At first I thought, I'll go without tonight. One night. It'll be good for me. I don't have to drink every night. God, if I drank every night, I'd be starting to be like my mom. Which would be, like, totally disgusting.
    But I didn't know what to do. It's like I forgot what I usedto do to pass the time. I knew I could read or watch TV,