Read Online Josie and Jack by Kelly Braffet - Free Book Online Page B

much better when it was Jack and me alone. He didn’t want to let me out of his sight and he didn’t want to talk. We walked, we played cards, we did calculus, all in a thick silence. Nothing I said or did, or didn’t say or didn’t do, broke through it. But every night, soon after I’d gone to bed, Jack would come to my bedroom and lie next to me, throwing his arm across me as he’d done since we were children. Sometimes his need, his anger, whatever it was, came off him in waves and I knew we would be awake for hours. Sometimes he just seemed to want me next to him, and on those nights we lay silently until one or the other of us fell asleep. It was a funny thing about my bed. When I lay in it alone, it seemed too big; with Jack there, it seemed too small.
    By contrast, being with Kevin was a relief, blissfully uncomplicated, though Jack was watching over us like a sparrow hawk, listening for our movements from the next room, or just outside. If Kevin noticed, he didn’t seem to care. Once or twice we took his father’s car, drove to some deserted spot, and spent an hour kissing frantically. I came home those nights with sore lips and damp underwear, feeling rumpled and sticky. Jack was always waiting: staring at me, through me, as if he could somehow see where I’d been and what I’d been doing.
    I never did meet Kevin’s parents. He didn’t mention them again. Maybe he’d decided I wasn’t that kind of girl; ironic, considering how staunchly I kept my promise to Jack. Kevin got nothing from me. The line I drew was so hard and fast that I wanted Jack to challenge me on the subject so that I could explain to him how faithful I’d been, how steadfast and loyal. But he never asked. In fact, he never said anything at all about Kevin, until one Saturday afternoon when Kevin rang the doorbell and Jack refused to open the door.
    “Why are you being like this?” I said. I wanted to scream it, but Kevin was on the other side of the door, ringing the bell over and over again.
    “Why are you being such a love-struck little girl?” Jack said. “I didn’t think I had the kind of sister that would fall over backward for the first guy who stuck his”—Jack’s lip curled— “tongue in her mouth.”
    “Don’t start.” My teeth were clenched.
    “Tell him to go home. Tell him you don’t want to see him anymore.”
    “I won’t.”
    “You want me to tell him?”
    “This was your idea!” I said. I was almost crying with rage. “This was all your idea!”
    “It was my idea to milk Monkey-boy for some cheap drugs.” Jack’s voice was cold. “It was not my idea to sit upstairs by myself all night while he fucks my little sister on the family couch.”
    I could hear Kevin calling, “Josie? Jack? You guys home?”
    Jack stared at me and I started to shake.
    Suddenly Jack smiled. “Just a sec, Kevin!” he called merrily through the door. “Having some trouble with the lock, here.”
    “No problem.” Kevin sounded relieved.
    Jack stepped away from the door, close to me. I tried to move back. There was a wall in my way.
    “You do this to me every night,” he said quietly. “Every single goddamned night. I’ll let him in. But this is the last time.”
    “Fine.” I was furious.
    He pushed me to the wall, standing against me so that I couldn’t move away, and took my head in his hands. Each of his fingers was a hot hard bolt pressing into my skull. He pulled me toward him so that our foreheads were touching, so that all I could see was his face.
    “Did he tell you he loves you?” His voice was acid with contempt. I could smell whiskey on his breath. “Did you believe him? ”
    “Let me go,” I hissed. I tried to pull away.
    He held me harder. “I am the only person who has ever loved you. The only person in the entire goddamned world.”
    Then he dropped his hands and stepped back. I stood trembling against the wall. He reached out and smoothed my hair down where he’d rumpled it. Then, calmly,