Read Online Fragile by Lisa Unger - Free Book Online

him put his hands to his temples and rub. She felt a gnawing sadness watching him there. Sometimes, even when they were only separated by feet or inches, he seemed so far away, untouchable. When did it happen? When did this strange distance grow between them, and why didn’t she have the energy to open the door, walk out to his car, and bring him home?

6
    I t was one of the things Amber hated most about autumn, the early fall of darkness. Summer days reached lazily on into summer nights, stretching orange fingers against the encroaching black, then surrendering with a shrug. In autumn, the light snuck out early, like it was late for something, like it might not be coming back. After lunch, she started to feel uneasy, had a sense that the day was racing away and she was being left behind. Her mother said that she was too young to feel like that, that she had all the time in the world. But she couldn’t shake the feeling when, even on the bus ride home, the sky was already growing dark.
    It was dark now, as dark as it would be at midnight, and it wasn’t even dinnertime yet. As she got farther from her house, she slipped a cigarette from the pack in her jeans and cupped her hand to light it. It wasn’t until after she took the first drag that she saw him sitting there. She didn’t know he had a car.
    She heard him lower the window as she approached. She leaned down to look inside instead of walking by without acknowledging him, which she’d usually do if she saw him in the cafeteria or the hallway. Curiosity got the better of her.
    “What are you doing here?” she asked.
    She’d told her mom that she was going for a walk, the smokes shoved into her jeans, a lighter in her pocket. Wear a jacket. And don’t go far. Dinner’s almost ready . She wondered if her mother suspected that she went out for a cigarette. Anyway, what could she say? Every once in a while, Amber would find a cigarette butt pressed into the soft ground behind the pool house with her mother’s lipstick on it. A little secrethabit they both had. It would be just like her mother to pretend she didn’t know her daughter was smoking, letting herself off the hook of forbidding and then punishing. Her mother preferred the surface of their life to be calm and harmonious, even when the depths were roiling.
    He’d been parked down a house or two, just sitting there, smoking, as well. As she got closer, she saw a pack of Lucky Strikes on the dash. No filters. The sight of that red and white soft pack, one cigarette poking out a neatly ripped opening, and he suddenly seemed different to her, less dorky. It was a cool car, too. Old but tough, one of those muscle cars.
    “Just chillin’. Waitin’ on my boy.” She hated it when white, suburban guys tried to talk and act like gangbangers, taking on the too-cool lope and apathetic, half-lidded gaze. He immediately sank back to dork in her estimation.
    “Who? Justin?”
    He gave a slow nod. She didn’t know they hung out. In fact, she doubted it. She just couldn’t see Justin Hawk, football quarterback, pot dealer, senior class heartthrob, throwing this guy a backward glance. Unless.
    “You got some? Or are you waiting on it?” Amber asked. It would be nice to get high, even with a dork. Marijuana was the only thing that had ever taken the edge off the constant buzz of anxiety she had lately. It made her calm, relaxed her, made her laugh.
    He gave a slow shrug. “Back at my crib, yeah, if you want some.” Crib. Come on .
    “I can’t,” she said, nodding toward her house. “My mom’s cooking.”
    “You’ll be back in twenty. I’m just a mile up the road.”
    Was that true? She didn’t know where he lived. She didn’t think he lived that close. Doctors, lawyers, hedge fund managers like her dad—those were her neighbors. She didn’t even know what his parents did. Hadn’t she heard his dad was in jail?
    “Thanks,” she said, trying to be sweet about it. “But I have to get