Touch by Jennifer Snyder Read Free Book Online

feeling more connected with my mother than ever before.

    “ If I’m a Link and my mother was a Link, then is it hereditary or something?” I asked once we’d exited Wooten Cemetery.
    “ In some cases it can be, but I don’t think it is with you.”
    “ Why is that?” I picked at the corner of my notebook while we walked.
    “ Because you obviously weren’t born one. You didn’t become a Link until a car accident shortly after the suicide of your mother, who, in fact, was a Link her entire life. You’re a replacement Reaper.”
    I scrunched up my face. “A replacement Reaper?”
    Jet nodded. “You’ll become one to fill your mother’s place.”
    My stomach twisted. Had she known her decision to end her life would seal my fate, forcing me to take her place? If she hadn’t, then she did now, watching me from Purgatory.
    So many emotions swept through me—anger, betrayal, sadness—all intertwining to form a physical feeling. Pain. It burned beneath my skin like a raging fever, making me ache.
    “ She didn’t know, if that’s what you’re thinking. I saw how much she loved you when we touched back there. If she’d known the extent of what her choice would do to you, she would have stayed. Trust me.”
    I glanced at Jet, letting his words and his sympathetic eyes comfort me in a way no one else could. I realized I’d begun falling for a guy who was already dead… and falling fast.

 

     
    Chapter Nine
     
    It was nearly five o’clock when I got home. Dusk had fallen and the stillness of night had begun to creep in. I stepped inside my house, feeling strange with a relatively invisible person in tow behind me, and noticed a four-foot-tall Fraser fir standing in the center of our living room. Dad sat on the couch, staring blankly at it.
    I froze mid-step as the date suddenly came to me. In all the commotion, somehow Christmas had slipped my mind; tomorrow was actually the final day of school before Christmas break began. I gazed at the tree, dumbfounded.
    “ Chad from work brought it by this afternoon,” Dad said.
    “ That was nice,” I replied.
    He shook his head. “It’s just not Christmas without her.”
    I blinked and shifted my gaze to him, understanding exactly how he felt. I hadn’t thought about how it would feel to spend the holidays without her, until now.
    “ I know,” I whispered, walking past him, headed to my room.
    The absence of my mother seemed to echo loudly through the house. I could sense it swallowing my father whole and threatening to grab hold of me at any moment. I wished for the first time Jet were able to wrap me in his arms, or hold my hand even. Disappointment prickled through me because I knew it wasn’t possible, that there was no physical way for him to console me.
    “ Are you okay?” Jet asked, once we’d crossed the threshold to my room and I’d closed the door behind us.
    I leaned against my dresser and set my notebook down. “No,” I answered truthfully. “He’s right; it won’t feel like Christmas without her.”
    I thought of the blue and white icicle lights that wouldn’t hang from our gutters this year, and the three-foot-tall candy canes that wouldn’t line our driveway. I doubted we’d even decorate the tree in the living room, much less have anything waiting under it on Christmas morning.
    Tears pricked my eyes. I turned away from Jet and busied myself with lining my nail polishes in neat little rows, forgetting he could still see my face in the mirror.
    “ Should I go?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
    I met his gaze in the mirror as a tear escaped, sliding down my cheek. “No… stay. Please.”
    Sympathy swallowed the brightness of his eyes and creased his brow. Jet stepped soundlessly across the distance between us, until only mere inches remained. I struggled to feel something from his closeness that I could take comfort in, but felt nothing. There was no warmth emanating from his skin to mine, no breath gently caressing my