Read Online Casey Barnes Eponymous by E.A. Rigg - Free Book Online

Corcoran if you don’t believe me.”
    “She’s a slut.”
    “No she’s not.   She’s really nice.   She
dumped Alex because she felt like he pressured her to have sex right away and
then was always checking out other girls when they were in public.”
    “Did she?”
    “Did she what?”
    “Have sex with him.”
    Yull nodded.   “Did
you?”
    “No.”
    “Be honest.”
    “I am being honest.   I didn’t.”   She turned the
T.V. down and went over to the fancy china cabinet.   Tricia kept junk food there.   The theory was that if she kept it away
from the main food stores household members would not eat it on a frequent
basis.   The theory did not hold
true.
    She took out a box of double stuff Oreos, brought them to the
kitchen table, and began eating one in the only manner any human should ever
eat a double-stuff Oreo: by licking out the white stuff and tossing the
half-eaten chocolate bits in the kitchen sink.   Yull joined in.   “Do you want to talk about it more?” he
asked.
    “Remember those things Hostess used to make that were pink and
coconutty?”
    “They had cream in the middle, right?”
    “They were made by Hostess ,
Einstein.”
    “Snoballs.”
    “Right.   You never
see those in stores anymore.   Why’s
that?”  
    He shrugged.   “Beats
me.”
    “Think you can buy them online?”
    “Probably.”
    Casey nodded and dug into another Oreo.   A moment passed.   “Do you think maybe he just hasn’t met a
girl who understands him yet?”
    “You mean like one with dirty hair and Kurt Cobain T-shirts?”
    “Don’t ruin your indoctrination of me into the fag hag
sorority,” she said.   He gave her
the finger.   “There’s something I never
told you.   About him,” she added.
    “What?”
    “We had a thing for a couple of days at the end of the summer,
when you and Mom were away looking at colleges.”
    “What kind of ‘thing?’”
    “We saw a movie and went to the beach and ate funnel cake and I
slept over.”
    Yull looked strange for a moment, as if he was realizing
something.   “This was right before
Labor Day weekend?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That explains it.”
    “What?”
    “At that seniors only party when he hooked up with
Melanie.   He got really weird when I
showed up.”   This made Casey feel
both good and bad.   “Are you sure
you didn’t sleep with him?” he asked.
    “Yes Yull.   I’m
sure.”   She leveled her most recent
Oreo conquest towards the sink.   It
missed and landed in the middle of a potted cactus.   “If you truly want to be a caring brother
you won’t remove that from the cactus until Tricia’s seen it.”
    He shook his head.   “I don’t think his problem is that he hasn’t met a girl who understands
him yet.   It’s like a game for
him.   Or maybe he doesn’t get how
much he plays with girls’ heads.   But there’s one thing I know for sure:   The guy’s a narcissist.”
    “We’re eating Oreos, bro.   Please stick to a third-grade reading level.”
    “Narcissus was a figure from Greek mythology who was extremely
physically beautiful.”
    “But Alex Deal’s not--”
    “But don’t you see?   That’s how he gets away with being such a dog.   He plays it all shaggy sensitive band
guy.   Girls think he’s different
than the guys who come on strong.   And then, once defenses are down, he goes in for the kill.”  
    Casey stared at Yull for a moment.   She began to dig out the white part of
another Oreo with the top cookie layer.   “So whatever happened to Narcissus?”
    “He could never fall in love with anyone because he was so in
love with himself.   He viewed those
who loved him with contempt because they thought they were worthy and they
inflicted their needs on him.   So
the gods came up with a unique punishment for him.”
    She stacked the scraped out vanilla part onto the middle
section of another Oreo.   “Now it’s
like a quadruple stuff Oreo.”
    “Don’t let Alex Deal cause you to