Who Do You Love by Jennifer Weiner Read Free Book Online

place past thought. For at least another hour, sometimes for the rest of the afternoon, he would feel good in his body, at home in his skin.
    He and his mother lived on the first floor of a row house in Kensington that had been split into three apartments, one on each floor. Andy armed sweat off his forehead and pulled out the house key that hung on a cord around his neck, unlocking the door and stepping inside, releasing the gentle sigh healways gave when he realized that he was alone. A single woman, a widow, lived on the second floor, but Andy hardly saw her, and the landlord kept the third floor mostly empty, using it for cousins and grandchildren when they came to visit. Andy Landis didn’t spend much time at other kids’ houses when their parents were home, but he was starting to get the idea that not every kid had to be as careful to avoid the lightning flashes of a parent’s temper, that other moms were different from his. It wasn’t like Lori hit him or ignored him for the few hours between dinner and bedtime when they were together, but sometimes he thought that his mother just didn’t like him very much, that if some genie or fairy godmother showed up and promised to take Andy somewhere else, to give him to other parents, Lori would agree without hesitation. But then he would tell himself that Lori worked hard, sometimes six days a week, on her feet for nine, sometimes ten hours, and that he always had enough to eat, and clothes to wear, even if the clothes came from thrift shops or the church donation table, and he was the one who cooked the food and did the dishes afterward.
    Three weeks ago he’d been doing his math homework at the kitchen table when his mom had handed him a gray-and -wh ite ski jacket that she’d picked up at church. “It’s still got a lot of wear in it,” she’d said, sounding proud. Andy had seen the tag with Ryan Peterman’s name sewn on the back of the collar right away, but when he’d pointed it out, he’d kept his voice quiet, not wanting to hurt her feelings, not wanting to make her mad.
    Lori had sighed, then had looked at him, looked right in his eyes, holding his gaze with her own so that he couldn’t turn away. “I can’t buy you a new one, and you’re too tall for last year’s,” she’d said. “This one’s almost good as new.”
    You can buy me a new one, Andy thought. You can, but you won’t. He knew about what she called her “mad money,” how there was a chipped mug all the way in the back of the kitchen cabinet that was full of quarters and bills, ones and fives and tens and twenties. Every few months she’d ask the Strattons if Andy could sleep over and she’d take a bus to Atlantic City with her girlfriends. Sometimes she’d come back laughing, her wallet full of crisp new bills, but mostly she’d walk right past him into her bedroom and shut the door without a word.
    Andy had stuffed the jacket in the darkest corner of the coat closet, but that morning, finally, it had started to snow, and Lori had insisted that he wear it, had even walked with him to school to make sure he didn’t take it off.
    Ryan Peterman hadn’t wasted a second. “Hey, asswipe, that’s my old jacket!” he’d shouted, loud enough for the rest of the fifth grade to hear.
    â€œFuck off,” said Andy—that being, of course, the only acceptable response. Ryan had yanked down the collar to show the other kids his name. Andy felt the world narrowing, the way it did when he ran, only this time, instead of just the street or the grass or the sidewalk, all he could see was Ryan Peterman’s big, stupid pale face as he drew his arm back and started pounding Ryan, on his cheek, his head, his shoulders and chest and sides, hitting and hitting until Ryan’s nose was dripping blood and he was crouching down with his arms over his head, screeching “Get