Read Online Don't Try to Find Me: A Novel by Holly Brown - Free Book Online

smelled strongly of bleach. He’d obviously cleaned for my arrival, but the place was pretty industrial, with exposed pipes and a scarred stone floor. I told myself how sweet it was that he tried so hard to clean; I told myself that it’s starving-artist chic. B.’s scholarship only gives him a small stipend for living expenses, and his parents don’t help him out at all. He’s doing it on his own, like I will.
    “I don’t think anyone saw us,” he said, like he was trying to reassure himself.
    I have to get used to the idea that no one should see me. I’m voluntarily turning into a ghost. But that’s not for long, just until we can go on Disappeared.com and get everything arranged. Soon, I’ll be able to walk out the front door.
    B. showed me around. He made the built-in bookshelves himself, out of lumber he scavenged. There was this awesome bed that he pulled down from the wall, made of the same wood. He built that, too. The photo was on Facebook: B. standing next to the finished bed with a saw-type thing.
    I love that he’s good with his hands—a thought that sent a shiver through me. This time, it was the good kind of shiver. The kind I wouldn’t let Kyle create.
    I feel bad about what I did with Kyle. It’s not like B. and I ever said we wouldn’t be with anyone else—we’re the farthest thing fromFacebook official—but I am living with him now. I won’t do it again. It’s not like guys are exactly beating down the door to get to me, and besides, I won’t need anyone else, now that I have B., really and truly.
    “This bed is so beautiful,” I said. I ran my hand over the wood. “How long did it take you to make it?”
    “A couple of weekends.”
    “How did you do it? Like, how do you attach the parts of the wood to one another?” I was a little curious, but mostly I hate dead air.
    B. gave me a smile, like, “Silly girl, everyone knows that.” He didn’t answer.
    He put all my clothes in the dresser and gave me a towel for the shower. He seemed a little stiff, formal maybe. No, gentlemanly. But after I showered, I went and sat on the futon next to him, and he actually moved to the other end. He said he wanted me to have my space. WTF?
    I’d come all the way across the country, and I was sitting there in my T-shirt and jeans with no bra on, and he was giving me space. Maybe he isn’t attracted to me, after all. I think I look like my photos, but maybe I’ve changed. Or he’s changed his mind.
    He made us some spaghetti with sauce from a jar and the conversation was a little stilted. It’s probably because I just wanted to forget about the bus ride. About Hellma and her bony toes and that needle, and the smoking trolls, and the fighting couple, and the dead Iraqi family, and hooking up with Kyle (the one nice thing, which probably shouldn’t have happened). So I tried to get B. to do all the talking.
    He told me about how he made this snotty rich kid look stupid in class the other day. His college has a lot of rich kids. B. loves learning but he hates a lot of the other students. He says they’ve had it too easy, that they don’t appreciate anything. They want to get good grades by doing the minimum and spend the rest of their time partying.
    I’ve never met anyone like B. He’s so smart—a genius, probably—and he’s had to do everything himself. His dad used to beat him up and put him down. What a combo.
    There was this one funny thing at dinner. The conversation had all these lulls that were making me nervous. It was too much time for my mind to go off-leash. With texting, there are no awkward silences. It feels natural to sometimes have to wait for a response. B. and I talked on the phone much more rarely than we texted because I didn’t want to get caught and have my parents know anything about him, mostly because they’d want to know EVERYTHING and they wouldn’t be happy with what they heard. They’d think he was too old, and too far away, and that it’s weird that