Read Online Love Is the Higher Law by David Levithan - Free Book Online Page A

can’t remember ever climbing into bed with her when I was a girl, not even after a nightmare or during a storm like this. She wasn’t that kind of mother, and I wasn’t that kind of daughter. I don’t think we’re about to start now. She looks older when she’s asleep, and this alarms me. She looks like the act of sleep is exhausting her as much as the act of living.
    I wanted to go back to our apartment, but we were told we couldn’t. Three times, we walked down to the barricades on Canal Street and let the police officers know where we lived. Each time, they said it was still too dangerous. They asked us ifwe had a place to stay. “We just want to see it,” I said, even though I knew there was no point.
    When I picture my room, I imagine everything covered in ashes. I know the windows are closed. I know the door is shut. But I imagine death as a fine dust that’s gotten in through the cracks, that covers my unmade bed, my clothes, my carpet. In my mind, it looks like a hundred years have passed, draining away all the color. The air itself has decayed and fallen to the floor.
    I try to think of other things, but there are no other things. This is the only thing I can think about.
    Every time I’ve walked downtown—every time I’ve looked downtown—it’s been the same. First the smoke. Then the source of the smoke. And the disappearance. How the other buildings, which once seemed so small in comparison, have now revealed their true height.
    Gone . One of the words that’s hardest to fully comprehend. Gone .
    I feel the urge to weep, the kind of weeping that feels like you are choking on a thick black cloud. I manage to keep it in, but barely. Walking back here tonight, right before dinner, a woman passed me, and she was laughing. A dancing, happy laugh. I can still see her. She was walking downtown—she could see the smoke, if she looked. And she was laughing at something her companion had said. And I thought, How can you?
    It is unbelievable to see the city so shut down. It is unbelievable that there are no planes in the sky. It is unbelievable that none of us know the full impact yet.
    I could take the leather-bound Little Women off of Rana’s bookshelf and read it in the bathroom, where the light won’t disturb anyone. Or I could go into the den, where Sammy’s asleep, and turn on the television, muted, looking for the one channel that will pretend nothing’s happened. If only I still had my faith in old books and reruns. They are among the things I feel have been taken from me, along with humor and hope and the ability to savor. I could go into the kitchen and steal some ice cream from the freezer, but it would only taste like cold on my tongue. I could put on headphones and listen to a CD, but it would only sound like disturbed airwaves, not music. So I stay in bed until the thunder stops and Mom’s sleep-breathing slows and my thoughts become so loud that I can’t take it anymore. Because after the storm there’s something even scarier outside—an astounding, uncitylike quiet. I don’t hear any cars going by, no voices. There are no clocks ticking in the apartment, no gusts of wind pressing against the glass. It’s as if the rain has washed all the life away, except for the water finding the openings in the pavement, seeping down.
    I have to get out of here. Being here makes me remember that I’m not home. It makes me remember why I’m not home.
    I set my feet quietly on the floor, careful not to take any of the sheets with me, trying to levitate from the mattress so Mom won’t feel me shift. I have been sleeping in my clothes, and nobody has questioned this. Now that I’m up, I feel unwashed, but I worry that the simple act of turning on the faucet will wake up not just the sink and the pipes, but the whole apartment. So Ichange into new socks and carry my shoes into the den. I want Sammy to be up, so I can ask him to come with me. But when I look at the couch, I find him floating in a