Read Online My Beating Teenage Heart by C. K. Kelly Martin - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: C. K. Kelly Martin
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missed you.” Lily smiles. “Your dad said you got a nasty burn from the kitchen tap.”
I wave my bandaged hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine tomorrow.” Before she can pursue it further I yawn and motion to the door. “I’m completely wiped. I’m going to head up—see you in the morning.”
I take the stairs two at a time and swallow a sleeping pill from my diminishing stash. It’s not the same as really getting away from here but it’s what I have and I wonder, as I begin to drift off, what Skylar would think if she’d seen what I did in the kitchen earlier today.
I try to imagine her getting angry with me, yelling at me for even thinking of running away. It would make me feel better if I could picture her mad at me, but even in my head she’s not. I see her wide blue eyes pleading with me the way they did the last time I saw her. “But the boxes are so heavy, Breckon. You know I won’t be able to lift them.”
“I said later , Skylar. You don’t need to find it right this second. What did I tell you about bugging me when I’m in the middle of something?”
Skylar pouted in defeat; she knew better than to keep asking me. She was too many years younger than me for me to ever think of being downright mean to her but I know I didn’t always act like she mattered. Why didn’t you wait for me, Skylar? Why couldn’t you just have fucking waited an hour?
This is one of two questions I’ll ask myself for the rest of my life.
And the other is the reason that I need the pills.
seven
ashlyn
I miss the beat of my heart.
I miss the feel of my lungs expanding as they take in oxygen.
I miss being able to swing my hips to the pounding beat of the latest chart-topping dance hit.
I miss hearing someone say my name.
I miss the feel of sunlight, warm on my face. I can see it when I’m outside with Breckon Cody, or watch it stream golden through his window, but I can no longer feel it. Three out of five of my senses are dead along with the rest of me.
No one asks if you want to be born and no one tells you when you die either. If I’d wanted to learn the truth, I might have figured it out earlier. Now that I know, the knowledge burns me the same way Breckon’s skin began to melt under scalding-hot water.
Everything I knew was wrenched away from me and I don’t even remember how. Did it happen in an instant or did I die a long, painful death? Did I fight until the end, clinging to life until I couldn’t hold on another moment or did I surrender quickly, seeking to escape the pain of some terrible disease?
Memories are slowly returning to me, but not of that. My early memories—and the ones of my parents that precede my existence—are the ones that seem to be filtering back first.
I was loved, I know my family must be inconsolable, the way Breckon’s family is. Why can’t I go to them? Why am I tethered here with Breckon instead and where is his sister? Why can’t I see her? Where is everyone else? All the other people who have died? There must be billions.
An eternity of this is unthinkable. There has to be something I can do, a larger afterlife to move on to. I try again to break free, struggling in the only way open to me—thought. I meditate on the names of my family, over and over again. Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. The strength of my desire should fly me to them. It would be only fair. Only fair , I repeat. Only fair .
Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. I’m here. I haven’t left this earth yet .
But my soul, because I guess that’s what this remaining bit of me is, remains fixed firmly in Breckon Cody’s orbit. I’ve watched him lie sleeping next to his girlfriend, watched him hurt himself, watched him try to hide the pain of his awful loss … but what about my loss?
And my family can’t be far. I spied Strathedine signs when Breckon was out driving with his friend and that made me remember something else—I lived in
I wave my bandaged hand dismissively. “It’ll be fine tomorrow.” Before she can pursue it further I yawn and motion to the door. “I’m completely wiped. I’m going to head up—see you in the morning.”
I take the stairs two at a time and swallow a sleeping pill from my diminishing stash. It’s not the same as really getting away from here but it’s what I have and I wonder, as I begin to drift off, what Skylar would think if she’d seen what I did in the kitchen earlier today.
I try to imagine her getting angry with me, yelling at me for even thinking of running away. It would make me feel better if I could picture her mad at me, but even in my head she’s not. I see her wide blue eyes pleading with me the way they did the last time I saw her. “But the boxes are so heavy, Breckon. You know I won’t be able to lift them.”
“I said later , Skylar. You don’t need to find it right this second. What did I tell you about bugging me when I’m in the middle of something?”
Skylar pouted in defeat; she knew better than to keep asking me. She was too many years younger than me for me to ever think of being downright mean to her but I know I didn’t always act like she mattered. Why didn’t you wait for me, Skylar? Why couldn’t you just have fucking waited an hour?
This is one of two questions I’ll ask myself for the rest of my life.
And the other is the reason that I need the pills.
seven
ashlyn
I miss the beat of my heart.
I miss the feel of my lungs expanding as they take in oxygen.
I miss being able to swing my hips to the pounding beat of the latest chart-topping dance hit.
I miss hearing someone say my name.
I miss the feel of sunlight, warm on my face. I can see it when I’m outside with Breckon Cody, or watch it stream golden through his window, but I can no longer feel it. Three out of five of my senses are dead along with the rest of me.
No one asks if you want to be born and no one tells you when you die either. If I’d wanted to learn the truth, I might have figured it out earlier. Now that I know, the knowledge burns me the same way Breckon’s skin began to melt under scalding-hot water.
Everything I knew was wrenched away from me and I don’t even remember how. Did it happen in an instant or did I die a long, painful death? Did I fight until the end, clinging to life until I couldn’t hold on another moment or did I surrender quickly, seeking to escape the pain of some terrible disease?
Memories are slowly returning to me, but not of that. My early memories—and the ones of my parents that precede my existence—are the ones that seem to be filtering back first.
I was loved, I know my family must be inconsolable, the way Breckon’s family is. Why can’t I go to them? Why am I tethered here with Breckon instead and where is his sister? Why can’t I see her? Where is everyone else? All the other people who have died? There must be billions.
An eternity of this is unthinkable. There has to be something I can do, a larger afterlife to move on to. I try again to break free, struggling in the only way open to me—thought. I meditate on the names of my family, over and over again. Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. The strength of my desire should fly me to them. It would be only fair. Only fair , I repeat. Only fair .
Dad. Mom. Celeste. Garrett. I’m here. I haven’t left this earth yet .
But my soul, because I guess that’s what this remaining bit of me is, remains fixed firmly in Breckon Cody’s orbit. I’ve watched him lie sleeping next to his girlfriend, watched him hurt himself, watched him try to hide the pain of his awful loss … but what about my loss?
And my family can’t be far. I spied Strathedine signs when Breckon was out driving with his friend and that made me remember something else—I lived in
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