Whisper by Phoebe Kitanidis Read Free Book Online Page A

of us have to live every day.” Her knuckles rapped the side of my head. “Our little Joy-Joy is finally growing up!”
    Something snapped in me when she tapped my head.
    I knocked her hand away, hard. “I hate you.” I didn’t mean for those words to come out, and when they did I was amazed at how hard my voice sounded. But as I watched her take a slow puff on her cigarette, watched her smirk at having got to me, I realized I wasn’t done. Not close to it. “I hate what you do to our family,” I said. “I hate what you do to my friends. You act like you’re so much better than all of us, when you’re nothing but a mean, nasty, negative…bitch.” I heard her snicker at my hesitation to swear, but I felt detached. This was no longer a conversation, or even a fight. I was just telling her how it was. The ugly truth. “You’re not a misunderstood victim,” I said. “You’re just spoiled and selfish. You have a gift, a power that could make this world a better place, but all you do is make people miserable.”
    “Oh, grow up. Making people happier doesn’t make them better.” Ahh, the Humanity Is Evil rant. “People suck. Get it through your head: They’re beyond saving. Ifyou want to help the rest of the planet, stop spraying chemicals on your head. Stop eating tortured animals shipped using fossil fue—”
    “Shut the hell up, you self-righteous bitch.” I was on a swearing roll. Icka’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head. “I am so tired of feeling sorry for you, when all you do is hurt me and hurt our family and hurt my friends. It’s like the only thing that makes you happy. Well, I’m sorry you can’t be happy, Icka. I really am! I’m sorry you hate your gift. But I’m not going to let you drag me down too. Because I’m not like you. I’m not a freak, like you.” It felt freeing to say the words, so I said them again. “I. Am not. A freak. Like you.”
    She groaned. “Too true, you’re not a freak. You’re just like everybody else, another stupid human Whispering stupid, horrible, disgusting desires. I Hear things, all the time. Things that would make you curl up in a fetal ball…and not just from creeps on the bus, either. It’s everyone.” She stared right into my eyes. “It’s you too. What the hell happened to you, Joy? The things you want these days. The things you pray for…it makes me sick. And I don’t have the luxury of shutting bad things out.” She bared her teeth, reached out, swiped back the vodka bottle before I could stop her. “The only thing I can do is stay the hell away from everyone…even you.”
    I put my hands on my hips, nearly tottering forward on my four-inch platforms.
    “Good, keep talking like that,” I said, surprised at howtight and angry my voice was. “You’re going to get your wish—you’ll end up all alone, with no one, with nothing. Hiding away from the world like Aunt Jane did. And you know what? The world will be a happier place without you in it.” My heart was pounding as if I was about to jump off a cliff—or maybe I’d already jumped. I had tried so hard. To love my sister and be loyal to her, no matter what she said or did, the way Mom could. But we had become the people we’d become, and I had to protect myself. “Stay away from the party tonight,” I heard myself say. “Stay out of my life from here on out. I’m done with you, Jess.”
    A strange look had come over Icka’s face. Maybe it was the childhood nickname that no one had called her for so many years. Maybe it was the hardness in my tone—me, Joy, the good sister, owner of the Sweetest Smile. Stiff superiority drained from the corners of her mouth and her eyebrows seemed to sag. I was shocked to realize I didn’t feel a bit sorry for the harsh things I’d just said. I was being cruel like she’d been to my friends, but they had been innocent while she completely deserved it. Even when her black-painted lower lip trembled, all I felt was a sour