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

need to know that there was a stack of fifty. Or had been. And she definitely didn’t need to know I’d slept with Priss. You probably think I’m a jerk, and you might be right.
    â€œThat must be hard for you,” she said. There was no edge to it, nothing sharp or sarcastic. “She means a lot to you. You’ve loved her a long time.”
    There was a twist in my middle, and my cheeks suddenly burned hot—I did miss Priss. But it was a toxic relationship. She connected me to a dark part of myself; I wasn’t sure I could finally grow up with her in my life. I said as much to Megan.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. She moved into me and I held on tight to her. “Maybe after there’s some distance, you can renew your relationship. She might need some space to change and grow, too.”
    This made sense—for normal people. But Megan didn’t know Priss. Megan had a whole stable of friends—from childhood, from college. All her old boyfriends were still hanging around in the guise of friendship. She was a magnet, drawing people to her and keeping them forever.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. I took in the scent of her hair. “She’s volatile, unstable. A lot would have to change.”
    And not just with Priss. With me, too. I’d have to stop wanting her so bad. I’d have to stop getting high and hopping into bed with her every time she showed up.
    â€œWell,” Megan said. She moved away and patted me on the chest, looked up with that sweet smile. She was an angel. Really, she was. “I still want to know her. So, if you repair your relationship with her, maybe we can work on that.”
    â€œOkay,” I said. “Definitely.” It was never going to happen.
    She took some “ancient wheat” (whatever the hell that means) pasta out of the sack and put it in the cabinet next to the fridge.
    â€œSo,” she said. She closed the cabinet and looked at me shyly. “Speaking of meeting people.”
    Megan asked me to come out to her parents’ Long Island beach house for the weekend. It was a big step, but I surprised myself by accepting. Her mother was a research librarian; her father was an author of some note—nonfiction, big historical books about wars, and periods in history that no one remembered except your grandfather. But he had racked up the big reviews, had been twice nominated for the National Book Award. And he’d won the Pulitzer for a series of articles he’d written decades ago for the New York Times on Nazi war criminals who had remained at large. So, yeah, I’d already Googled him.
    He didn’t have a website, too old school for that. But there were some pictures of him online. And honestly? He looked like a prick. In the author photo on his publisher’s website he gazed at the lens down his long nose over a pair of reading glasses, holding a pen in one hand, his arm resting on a desk. He was unapologetically bald and wrinkled. There were tall shelves of books behind him, the obvious backdrop. What would he think of a guy who wrote graphic novels for a living? Not too much, I guessed. I felt the niggle of inferiority that comes from being a genre writer. People always think you’re not as good as “real writers.” Of course, most people don’t know shit about art or writing or anything else.
    â€œMy dad’s a sweetheart,” Megan said. She had squealed with excitement when I said yes, and she’d been chattering ever since about the house, about her parents, about how excited they were to meet me. “You’re going to like him.”
    But then girls like Megan always think their daddies are sweet. And they may actually be sweet to their daughters. It was everyone else in the world who found them to be intolerable gasbags. In fact, she still called him “Daddy,” as in: “Daddy wants us to be there by three on Friday so we can walk on the