Read Online A Million Miles Away by Lara Avery - Free Book Online

TEN
    Twenty minutes later they were in the driveway, and Kelsey walked inside fast, ahead of her parents, closing the door behind her.
    She turned to go upstairs, but a streak of primary colors on the front table stopped her. Yesterday’s mail sat on top of a pile of bills, and on top of that, an envelope with official-looking postage. Then, in careful handwriting, all capitals:
    MICHELLE MAXFIELD
    1316 VERMONT STREET
    LAWRENCE, KS 66044
    Peter’s letter. Kelsey grabbed it and took the stairs two at a time. In her room, she paused. This was wrong. But it wasn’t the same kind of wrong she had felt before. It was the wrong she felt seeing the tree grow smaller in Kevin’s arms as he walked away, the wrong that cut Michelle’s happy ghost from her. As soon as she had picked up the letter, the guilt had faded.
    Michelle would want to open this, but she can’t , Kelsey thought as she slid her finger under the seal. So I’ll do it for her .
    12/14
    Dear Michelle,
    I’m writing this sitting against a fir tree. We made it from the desert to the Kunar Province a few days ago, all rugged mountains and green valleys and meadows with cattle. We ride in huge trucks on narrow paths up through the peaks and the rock formations. It’s like a slow roller coaster. It’s so pretty I have to try not to get distracted. I’ve never been this high off the ground before. Most of the people in my company have been in these valleys once or twice already. Sam and I go on errands to the village for chewing tobacco and in exchange they show us how to find the best watch spots in the cracks between boulders. They use chewing tobacco to stay awake, and pass the time. Almost every soldier chews while they’re here, whether they chewed before the tour or not. Except for me, of course. I am the youngest. They call me Petey.
    Sam is from Iowa. They call him Rooster because of his red hair. He’s short and raises beagles and loves death metal. We joke about how dumb the cows are and how the interpreter Alex (Alex isn’t his actual name, but that’s what he calls himself when he speaks English) has seen more American TV than I have.
    Sam says I need to shut up about you already. He’s looking over my shoulder right now and says if I don’t cross out the part about him being short he’ll roundhouse me. Tough luck, Sam.
    I have to admit that I didn’t expect to miss you as much as I do. I miss you next to me, but we didn’t have all that much time in the same room, anyway, so I miss talking to you most of all. In that little time, I told you things I’ve told no one else. Not secrets, just parts of the way I see the world that I didn’t know could be said aloud. So what I’m saying is, you hold all these parts of me, these parts I dug up, and you hold them inside your beautiful hands and brain and skin, so far away. And I have your hidden parts, too. I promise I’m keeping them safe. They’re still here, under all this body armor. I remember everything.
    One guy lost it this week. His name is Joel and he has all these moles on the back of his head and he didn’t go to high school and he loves Disney movies. Someone got ahold of a bottle of vodka and we passed it around and it seemed to affect him most. He was laughing a little too hard at nothing and then he wandered off somewhere and no one knew where he went until we heard screaming from the med tent. He was crying and kicking over gurneys and shelves, yelling about wanting to go home. The sergeant didn’t let him, of course. Now he doesn’t say a word to anybody.
    Soldiers sometimes ask each other what their reasons for fighting are, so we don’t end up like Joel, you know? Then, once we’ve got them, we’re supposed to let these reasons lie, never draw them out while we clean our guns or go on missions. But sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night—and the nights are so dark here, darker than even country nights in Kansas—and I have to hang on to the bed because I feel