Read Online Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen - Free Book Online Page B

both watched her slowly go up the walk and into the house.
    She didn’t stay long—maybe a minute, or even two. And when she came out, her face looked no different. “I’ll call you tonight,” she said to me. Then she stepped forward, pulling me into a tight hug. I remembered thinking, as she drove away, that my throat was so sore I’d surely be totally sick within hours. But I wasn’t. By the next morning it was gone.
    Cora called that first night, as promised, and the following weekend, checking in and asking how I was doing. Both times I could hear chatter in the background, voices and music, as she reported that she liked her roommate and her classes, that everything was going well. When she asked how I was, I wanted to tell her how much I missed her, and that my mom had been drinking a lot since she’d left. Since we’d hardly discussed this aloud face-to-face, though, bringing it up over the phone seemed impossible.
    She never asked to speak to my mother, and my mom never once picked up when she called. It was as if their relationship had been a business arrangement, bound by contract, and now that contract had expired. At least that was the way I looked at it, until we moved a few weeks later and my sister stopped calling altogether. Then I realized that deep down in the fine print, my name had been on it as well.
    For a long time, I blamed myself for Cora cutting ties with us. Maybe because I hadn’t told her I wanted to keep in touch, she didn’t know or something. Then I thought that maybe she couldn’t find our new number. But whenever I asked my mom about this, she just sighed, shaking her head. “She’s got her own life now, she doesn’t need us anymore,” she explained, reaching out to ruffle my hair. “It’s just you and me now, baby. Just you and me.”
    Looking back, it seemed like it should have been harder to lose someone, or have them lose you, especially when they were in the same state, only a few towns over. It would have been so easy to drive to the U and find her dorm, walk up to her door, and announce ourselves. Instead, as the time passed and it became clear Cora wanted nothing to do with me and my mother, it made sense to wipe our hands of her, as well. This, like the alliance between me and my sister all those years ago, was never officially decided. It just happened.
    It wasn’t like it was so shocking, anyway. My sister had made a break for it, gotten over the wall and escaped. It was what we both wanted. Which was why I understood, even appreciated, why she didn’t want to return for a day or even an hour. It wasn’t worth the risk.
    There were so many times during those years, though, as we moved from one house to another, that I would find myself thinking about my sister. Usually it was late at night, when I couldn’t sleep, and I’d try to picture her in her dorm room forty-odd miles and a world away. I wondered if she was happy, what it was like out there. And if maybe, just maybe, she ever thought of me.

Chapter Three
    “Ruby, welcome. Come join us, there’s a free seat right over here.”
    I could feel everyone in the room watching me as I followed the outstretched finger of the teacher, a slight, blonde woman who looked barely out of college, to the end of a long table where there was an empty chair.
    According to my new schedule, this was Literature in Practice with an M. Conyers. Back at Jackson, the classes all had basic names: English, Geometry, World History. If you weren’t one of the few golden children, anointed early for the AP-Ivy League fast track, you made your choices with the minimal and usually disinterested help of one of the three guidance counselors allotted for the entire class. Here, though, Mr. Thackray had spent a full hour consulting my transcript, reading descriptions aloud from the thick course catalog, and conferring with me about my interests and goals. Maybe it was for Jamie’s benefit—he was super donor, after all—but somehow, I