Young Annabelle by Sarah Tork Read Free Book Online Page A

always on its way, especially for
those who deserved it. And I definitely deserved it.
    From: Me
    Tomorrow. Same time, same place.
    Beep! Beep! Was it just me or were his texts coming
back with lightning speed?
    From: TIGER
    Cool. See u tomorrow.
    No matter how excited I was – mixed with
desperation – I couldn’t show how much I loved texting him, even
though we’d barely discussed anything (like where he went after I
came back from break?). I wasn’t about to scare him off with my
enthusiasm. I had to finish the conversation with something short
and simple.
    From: Me
    Cool.
    I exited the messages.
    Cool! It was the word of the moment. It was a diagnosis, a piece of
medicine that threw me over the wall that had always screamed ‘life
is unfair!’
    Had I been stumbling all this time? Had I
just been crashing, failing, never getting what this life thing was
all about?
    And there wasn’t even a
kiss!
    My head hit the pillow, my fingertips
trailing across my lips, in my head I replaced them with his and
the thought made my entire body convulse unnaturally. The feeling
was brand new. I’d never gotten this far in speaking with a boy.
The possibilities of what may come were foreign and my body, mind,
and soul welcomed these aliens with open arms.
    Geez! What if he had actually
kissed me?
    I would have crumbled to the ground, hoping
he’d touch me again. My body could only take so much of his
generously heated embraces, I would simply faint with the image of
him giving me the greatest gift of all.
    I giggled like a mad woman and shook my head
in disbelief. A few short text messages and I was already acting
like a love-crazy fool. What would happen if things actually
progressed into a relationship?
    Stalker psycho!
    Oh God no!
    I burst out laughing and gazed up at the
blank ceiling. Sometimes – most of the time – I wished my parents
would have let me paint mine just like Jenna’s, but at this moment
the empty ceiling served as a blank slate on which I would paint
with my newly-spiked imagination.
    *****
     
    Knock. Knock.
    “It’s open,” I called out happily, my hands
behind my head as I continued to stare at the ceiling. I was in the
middle of a wonderful story on my ceiling; it was just getting
good.
    Charles, my thirteen-year-old brother,
came barging in. “Dinner’s ready!” He turned right back around and
left, leaving the door wide open.
    Dinner’s ready! Am I even
hungry? I thought as I
got off my bed and headed out the door. My stomach began to grumble
loudly, apparently I was hungry. And like a crash of lightning blowing up the tree
that gave me life, it all came back.
    Mom!
    She wasn’t happy with my calorie burn today
and I didn’t burn those extra fifty she’d wanted when I came home.
I would have to brace myself for a battle during dinner
tonight.
    As I descended the stairs, I smelled tomato
sauce and garlic bread. They had made pasta, my favorite!
    I paused mid-step.
    They’re so evil!
    The chances that I’d be getting almost none
of one of my favorite meals were extremely high. Strangely, I was
handling this realization differently than usual. I was happy, and
I knew if this had happened yesterday I would have been
devastated.
    So I won’t get to eat a plate full of my
favorite meal. So what!
    Yeah, so what, I thought as I continued down
the stairs and into the dining room. I stopped in front of the
table at my usual seat, stunned. Mine was the only plate with just
salad on it.
    Gee, thanks Mom, I know I can
always count on you.
    I smiled at her, although I knew it didn’t
reach my eyes. Oblivious as she was, she smiled back genuinely. The
woman believed with all her heart that she was doing her rightful
duty as a mother, keeping the evil words of the teenage world from
tearing up my soul because I was bigger than my average
classmate.
    Damn you Florida and your perfect weather
making everyone want to have gorgeous beach bodies all year
long!
    I quietly sat in my chair and stabbed a