Read Online Black Tuesday by Susan Colebank - Free Book Online Page A

say.
    â€œI appreciate that.” She absentmindedly opened and closed the cover of the French book. Jayne wasn’t going to take him up on that offer to spill her guts anytime soon. She couldn’t do that with anyone. Not with her parents, not with her sister, not with Larry the Fairy, not with the media.
    The little girl was brain-dead. Not just hurt, as in physical therapy hurt.
    But brain-dead. Like one step away from dead dead.
    She couldn’t say those words out loud. They were ugly, ugly, soul-crunching words.
    When she was going to talk, it was going to be to that lawyer. And even then, hopefully, she wouldn’t have to talk talk. Maybe I can just hand him Mom’s notebook and let him look up the answers.
    â€œHey, I brought you something.” Tom pulled his hand away from his backpack and dug around in the front pocket. “It isn’t really anything. Just something, you know, to make you feel a little better.”
    He gave her a crumpled lunch bag. Inside was a framed photo of both of them sitting on the curb outside a roadside diner. Tom’s head was on her knee, and she was sticking her tongue out while she made bunny ears behind him.
    â€œFinally.” She managed a weak smile. “I’ve been after you forever to get this developed.”
    She cradled the cheap black frame as she remembered that day on Route 66. They’d been outside of Flagstaff, on their way to the Painted Desert. Her dad had dragged her mom out to look at hieroglyphics; Jayne, Tom, and Ellie had amused themselves by taking tons of pictures. Jayne with her digital Nikon, Tom with his disposable cardboard camera.
    â€œEllie took this one, right?”
    Tom grinned. “Yeah. The one your mom took is blocked by her thumb. For such a skinny woman, she’s sure got a fat thumb.”
    â€œIt’s great. Thanks.” She slipped the photo into her messenger bag. The moment of happiness started to give way to sadness. The picture had been taken this past March. The biggest worry she’d had back then was how to study for four tests while fitting in ten hours of tennis practice and putting on three car washes in one Saturday for three different clubs she belonged to.
    The good old days.
    â€œJayne, are you sure you don’t want to talk?” Tom attempted a wink. He wasn’t very good at it, though. He never was. “This is your chance to unload on me. Ellie things. Gen things. Any things.”
    The first bell rang.
    â€œNope, I’m good.”
    Tom got up, his hands again twisting the backpack strap. “We better get going, then. Heard a rumor there’s a pop quiz in chemistry.”
    A pop quiz she hadn’t studied for. Yeah, that was going to get her on her feet and pushing her way through the crowds.
    Jayne opened her French book again. “That’s okay. You go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”
    She looked up when Tom didn’t say anything. He had his backpack over one shoulder and was looking intently at the strap. He was contemplating something. He definitely had on his “How do I put this” face.
    He’d had that same look when he told her his dog had eaten their team art project in fifth grade. That had been the first and last time Jayne had been partners with him.
    She closed her book and rolled her eyes. “What? Whatever it is, just tell me.”
    He finally met her eyes. “I know you’re trying to avoid people, but I can walk you to class. No biggie.”
    â€œWhy?” A hint of suspicion was in her tone. It wasn’t like she was Gloria Salas, his girlfriend in ninth grade. The one who’d led him around on a leash and had him opening doors and walking her to class and making him blow his pizza-job money on her.
    â€œWe’ll be going past Jenna’s and Lori’s lockers.”
    Jayne looked down at the cover of her French book, warped after a decade of students using it. She forced out,