True Divide by Liora Blake Read Free Book Online Page A

word-for-word rundown of my conversation with Jake. She proclaimed him to be lumbersexual delicious, demanded I explain why I didn’t take the “ride” he offered, and peppered the rest of the fifteen-minute drive mumblingly trying to remember him from back in the day. No luck, it seems, because she only muttered his name and clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth in thought.
    Once I wave her off and get my car door unlocked, I settle into the seat and let out a long exhale at surviving her inquisition without blathering every sordid detail about all the history between Jake and me. Turning my key in the ignition sounds nothing but a click, followed by a series of ticking noises. I immediately want to scream but stifle it into a growl. I try again. Same result, same growl. Click, tick, tick, tick.
    This car, although it’s served me well through seven Montana winters, has recently decided to become about as reliable as nonwaterproof mascara at the beach. Now, on a frigid night when getting home to a warm bed is my priority, the beast decides to misbehave.
    I only live seven blocks away from the store, in the same house I grew up in, but it’s miserable out. All the wet snow that slushed into piles on the sidewalks is freezing into slick traps that will inevitably land me on my ass if I end up walking home. Giving the key one more mercy prayer of a turn, I sigh when the telltale click is the only response.
    I slam the car door and sling my bag over my shoulder, then heel-toe my way down the dark and icy driveway behind the store to the alleyway. The upside? I have to walk past the A&P to get home. Dusty’s mention of frosted animal crackers at the bar happened to inspire a craving for exactly that. One bag of frosted animal crackers it is. We’ll think of it as my reward for a frigid walk home.

    Leaving the store, I turn down the sidewalk along Main Street where more light comes from the full moon than anything, because Crowell is not a place with many streetlamps. Our little town shutters at dark, with only a few ancient lampposts in the center of town to guide a wellie-wearing girl home, clutching an open bag of cookies in the crook of her arm. I rip the bag open the second I get outside of the store and the utterly unnatural yet delicious taste of that strange candy coating slicks across my tongue, leaving the best-worst kind of aftertaste behind. Since I was a kid, these little snack cookies have been my favorite comfort food. To most people they’re just partially hydrogenated, mediocre cookies bordering on awful-tasting junk food. I happen to think they’re frosted contentment in a bag.
    Halfway home, the sound of a loud truck rumbles in the background, its dim headlights edging closer and illuminating the sidewalk as it nears. The truck slows to my pace when it coasts up just a few feet away, the engine puttering at a near idle. Please don’t let it be Dusty in his decrepit county-issued Ford Bronco. If it is, I’ll be compelled to veer my path into the worn dirt trail that runs behind the library, where I can eventually cut across the town pastor’s backyard, and shimmy between his house and mine. I’ll have to jump one fence, in a skirt, but avoiding Dusty’s inevitable commentary about the cookies will be worth it.
    As I consider my escape, the sound of a window cranking down creaks into the still night air.
    â€œHey, pretty girl. I thought you said you didn’t need a ride.”
    I’ve just slid a fresh animal cracker between my lips, teeth poised to bite off the pink head of whatever nondescript creature this one is. The truck stops so the headlights shine directly on me and I’m suddenly the living, clichéd embodiment of a deer in headlights. Jake is behind the wheel of Kate’s old farm truck, both his arms flopped on the open window frame and leaning his head forward so it’s just outside.
    Grinning, he lets out a low chuckle