Read Online After the Red Rain by Barry Lyga, Robert DeFranco - Free Book Online Page A

time, he seemed worried. No, not worried—shaken. As though that question had struck him, while all the others had been deflected by some kind of invisible armor. He hung his head, as though ashamed, and took a step away from her.
    “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here. It was stupid.”
    He turned to leave. Stopped. Looked back at her. Then he took one long step in her direction. His right hand came out of his pocket, and he put something on the ground between them.
    “Just wanted to give you…” He trailed off, and once again turned to leave.
    She stared at what he’d left. It was a mangled tin can, its colors faded blues and reds. The VITABEV! logo was still visible.
    “Wait!” she called, stopping him before he could drop down to the floor beneath them. She rushed forward and picked up the can, holding it out to him. “This? You came back for this? To show me an old can?”
    Rose shrugged, hands jammed in his pockets again. “Look at it.” He leaned in a bit. “Closely.”
    She stared at it, but it was just a crushed and shredded can.
    With an almost physical reluctance, he came closer to her, a war etched into his expression and his stride. He obviously wanted to leave but felt compelled to explain.
    He carefully—as though her skin were poisonous—plucked the can from her hand without touching her. They were as close now as they’d been at the river, and the delicate angles of his face seemed even more refined than before. The cuts on his face threw his beauty into starker relief.
    Beauty.
Was she crazy? He wasn’t beautiful. He was just…
    She suddenly smelled something sweet on the breeze. It made her dizzy for a moment, and when she came out of it, he was still standing there, turning the can over and over in his hands before her eyes.
    “See?” he asked with a strange urgency. “See?”
    “It’s just… a can.” Helpless, she added, “I’m sorry,” even though it wasn’t her fault. “How did you get cut? What happened to you?”
    He blinked at her. “Cut? Oh, when I went for this.” Again with the can. He was obsessed. “It caught the sunlight this morning out by theriver. It was under two cars that had tumbled and turned on top of each other. I had to crawl under. It was a tight fit.”
    “You could have gotten really hurt,” she said. “They could have collapsed on you.”
    “I guess so.”
    “You guess so? You risked your life for a
can
?”
    “Not just a can.” He thrust it toward her, insistent. “Look again. Here,” he said, and tilted it just so. “It looks like a flower, doesn’t it?”
    A flower?
She searched her memory. She’d seen images. And, yes, when you looked at it just right, the old can did sort of look like a flower, its petals made of peeled-back aluminum. It even sparkled a bit when rotated.
    “It’s…” She couldn’t believe it. “It’s sort of pretty.”
    His eyes lit up. “Yes! At first, it wasn’t totally like a flower. I had to bend some parts of it. But now it’s nice, right? Here, take it.” He pressed it gently into her hands. “I thought of you when I saw it. That’s why I went to get it.”
    She nodded slowly, still captivated by the grungy, old, beautiful can in her hands. “I’m glad you came back,” she said at last.
    He nodded to her and once again retreated toward the exit.
    “Wait,” she said. “Stay.”

    From the top of the building, Deedra could barely make out the outline of the Broken Bubble.
    “The ‘Broken Bubble’?” Rose asked, sitting next to her.
    He had stayed. And even though he kept his arms close by his side, as though fearing her touch, he sat beside her, watching the sun muddle behind the clouds.
    “There,” she said, pointing to a large structure off in the distance. She didn’t know what it actually was, but it looked like a decapitatedbubble. It was roughly circular, rising against the horizon, its top hacked off. It stood amid old cars and rusted-out buses, fallen steel beams, and