Read Online Crazy Love You by Lisa Unger - Free Book Online

a man, even when I was just a kid. She was raw power, until she was in my bed, where she was suddenly so sweet, so yielding when she wanted to be.
    â€œI miss you,” she whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
    Her words were vines, twisting and pulling at me. She was a little girl, alone in the woods. She needed me.
    I lowered her down and slowly pressed my weight on top of her. The sound of my name on her breath shot me through. We were tugging at each other’s clothes. Then her soft, hot lips were on mine, her arms around my neck. The power, the pull of flesh on flesh. Was any man ever strong enough to resist it? Then I was inside her, the heat of it almost too much to bear. Her helpless moaning rolled through me.
    I always lost myself to her, the goodness that I knew dwelled deep inside her. She was bad, very bad sometimes. Still, I loved her and had for most of my life. Even as I drowned in pleasure, I was distantly aware of how terrible I’d feel later. But in that moment, it didn’t matter, not even a little.
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    I woke up and it was dark. There was something unpleasant in the air and it took me a second to realize what it was: smoke. I leaped from the empty bed and stumbled to the kitchen. There was a stack of drawing paper, or what was left of it, on top of the Wolf range. All the burners were raging with blue-orange flame, and the industrial hood vent was humming like a tornado, lifting the smoke and ashes up into its powerful vacuum. I ran over, quickly turning off the burners and reaching under the sink for the fire extinguisher—which I couldn’t figure out how to work. But the pages were all gone by the time I got there anyway, consumed to ash. I didn’t spend any time wondering what Priss had set on fire. All my drawings of Megan.

Chapter Five
    The days after my sister died were characterized by silence. There was a small, grim service in the Episcopal church in town, a tiny coffin draped in white roses standing beside a spray of lilies. My grandmother wept, a choking, inconsolable sound that was part moan, part cough. My father was stoic, a firm grip on my thigh his only concession to grief. His big hand shook. I hated his touch. But I felt bad enough for all of us not to brush him away. My mother was a zombie, drugged and locked away in the hospital. Your mother needs to rest. It’s the worst kind of grief, to lose a child , my grandmother told me. No. Worse to lose a mother, surely. No one had said the words to me; no one told me what she had done. But I knew.
    These things happen, son , my father said. It’s horrible, but sometimes babies stop breathing. We all have to try to go on.
    Do kids sometimes stop breathing? I asked. Kids like me.
    He looked at me strangely, something sad and frightened twisting up his face. He put his hand on my shoulder. No, Ian , he said. That’s not going to happen.
    I believed him. Because even though he was often harsh, often distant, I knew he was strong and right about most things. He’d never told me a thing that later turned out not to be true. I didn’t like my father that much. But I trusted him to take care of me in the important ways—food, clothing, shelter, the naked truth about the world.
    Your mother will get better and come back to us.
    And even though he was wrong about that, I know he believed it at the time.
    After the service, I couldn’t wait to go home, and to rush out to the woods with Priss. There was a long procession of cars behind us, following us to the reception the ladies of the neighborhood had put together at our house. When we got out of the car, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and people I’d never met formed a circle around my father, offering their condolences. I slipped away, stopping near the edge of the woods to see if anyone noticed me. But no one did.
    Priss was waiting by the pond, holding a revoltingly large bullfrog.
    â€œLook,” she