Tiffany Tumbles: Book One of the Interim Fates by Kristine Grayson Read Free Book Online Page B

snap.
    “A little respect, please,” Megan says, but there’s no edge to it. “They make you feel at home?”
    “They make me me,” I say.
    “Ahhhh.” She leans back and temples her fingers like I’ve made some kind of revelation. “Can you be you without them?”
    “No!” I’m yelling without any build-up. I don’t expect that either. How come my emotions are all over the place when I’m with Megan? Does she do that on purpose? If she does, I want her to stop.
    I want to be able to ask someone how she does what she does, but Mom doesn’t know and I can’t go to the magic libraries on Mount Olympus until next summer and I can’t conjure Athena or Dad or anyone else from home, either. I just have to wonder, which isn’t fair.
    None of this is fair.
    Megan is staring at me, almost like she can hear what I’m thinking. And if she can hear it, I’m leaving.
    Although I know she can’t. We looked that up the first time. She can feel what I’m feeling, and sometimes, because of that, she can guess what I’m thinking pretty accurately, but she doesn’t hear the words.
    “Have you ever thought about the future?” she asks.
    I pause. I didn’t expect her to say that. I expected her to tell me that I can be me without them or that I am me even when I’m with them or that I can lose me because of them, but she doesn’t say that. She asks about the future, and I say, “Huh?” before I can stop myself.
    “The future,” she says. “What if you girls remain side-by-side for the rest of your lives? Don’t you have separate dreams?”
    “Dreams?” I ask.
    “Goals,” she says, like that explains it. “Don’t you want to be something when you grow up?”
    “Huh?”
    “I don’t know,” Megan says. “I wanted to be a fireman when I was really little. My brother wanted to be a basketball star.”
    I’ve met her brother. He’s an accountant.
    “You’re not a fireman,” I say.
    “But children have dreams,” Megan says. “Don’t you have any?”
    “What does that have to do with my sisters?” I ask.
    “What if they have different dreams?” Megan asks.
    “So?”
    “How can you fulfill those dreams if you are always with each other?” she asks.
    “We don’t have any dreams,” I snap.
    She nods, her eyes looking sad.
    “I know. We’re going to have to change that.” Then she glances at the clock beside her chair. “Oh, and by the way, time’s up.”

 
     
     
     
    SIX
     
     
    TIME’S UP. TIME’S up. She always says that, like time’s important to her. Like someone besides my mom is in the waiting room. No one is. She has no other patients in Eugene.
    (I hate that word “patient.” I’m not sick and neither is my mom. I asked Megan to use client, but she wouldn’t. Patient , she says. Look it up. Look up its roots. See what other words it’s related to . I did. Found patience. Didn’t like it much. Just like I don’t like time’s up.)
    I stand, get my purse, and give Megan the obligatory hug, even though I want to slap her (and I know she can feel that, so it’s kinda my revenge) and then I let myself out of the room.
    Mom is in the hall, not the waiting room like she’s supposed to be, and I see from the big round clock above the door that we went over five minutes.
    “You okay?” Mom asks.
    Of course I’m not okay. I just went to see my therapist . She just told me that I’m not me. She says I can’t be with my sisters until I figure out what “me” is, and I can’t be me without them, so I’m just screwed.
    That’s another word I learned this week: screwed. It’s pretty appropriate to the moment.
    “I’m fine,” I say. “She’s waiting for you.”
    Then I head to the waiting room like I’m going to spend the next hour there. I peer through the half open door, see Mom go into Megan’s therapy room, and count to ten. When I reach five, I let myself out and take the stairs to the first floor.
    I’m not really worried that Megan’ll say anything to