Read Online Random Acts of Trust by Julia Kent - Free Book Online

so...fucked up.”
    “The whole situation is kind of bizarre,.”
    “Yeah, I know,” he admitted. “But it’s the first thing that’s felt real , too,” he confessed. “What feels real to you Sam?”
    Amy. Her name flashed through my head.
    Joe stopped and said, “I gotta run, man. See you later.” He took off like a shot, abruptly ending whatever conversation we just started to actually have. Shit got real when you talked about what was deep inside you. Another person could help you find things, beliefs that were buried so far inside you didn’t even know they were there, things that you could never discover on your own, like trying to tie your shoes with just one hand—you could do it, but it was a hell of a lot easier with two.
Amy
    The all too familiar sound of Darth Vader’s marching music floated through my ears and I panicked, realizing my phone was ringing. Dammit! Mom’s ringtone. I grabbed the phone and quickly pressed Accept.
    “Hello?” I whispered.
    “Amy? Are you OK?”
    “Mom.” Of course it was Mom. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
    “Why are you whispering?” she said. There was urgency in her voice, a tone of weariness combined with worry that she always had—I couldn’t remember a time when my mother didn’t sound like that.
    “Nothing. I’m just...I’m out in public and I’m just trying to be respectful of other people,” I lied.
    “Oh, OK. Well, that’s good. So, honey, I’m calling with great news!” Oh boy, here it came. Evan. This was going to be about my brother Evan. Evanfest. Evanpalooza. Evan-o-rama. I steeled myself for a twenty minute conversation where Mom would talk about nothing but my brother—not that it was anything new.
    I walked as fast as I could back to the park bench and sat down, curling into myself, covering one ear, my phone pressed hard against the other. “Yeah, mom, what’s going on?”
    “Evan is coming home.”
    Surprise! I thought. “That’s great!” Mustering as much enthusiasm as I could, I slipped into the very familiar role that I was expected to play: dutiful sister, supportive daughter.
    What I wanted to say was, “That’s great, Mom! And by now he’s probably as high as a kite.” Or, “Wow, they let him out even though there’s no way he’s actually clean!” Or, “So, who did he bribe this time to get a few hits while he was in rehab?”
    When you live with a brother like Evan, you develop a radar—a bullshit radar—and it was one that was so finely honed in me that it made me want to reach through the phone and slap my mother silly for her enthusiasm and optimism.
    The rush of words that came out of her mouth was like Old Faithful—a geyser of completely trite, stereotyped statements. “Oh, honey, he’s on his way home right now. He just had to stop for a few minutes to get something to eat and then he’ll be here, and he is going to move back into his old room, and we’re going to get him enrolled in classes at Bedford Community College, and he’s decided that he’s just going to completely turn his life around, and he’s going to apply for a bunch of jobs. And...”
    My throat tightened. I could feel the bile rising in it. My body began to rock slightly forward and back, as if I could pick out some kind of tempo that would keep the truth at bay, that would allow the split in my head between the brain that needed to play along and the brain that was screaming in abject horror at being trapped in this position. My shoulders tightened up around my ears, and the all too familiar hot, burning stomach began.
    But none of that mattered, right? What mattered was that I was being supportive to my mom, that I was the good little girl. “That’s really wonderful, Mom,” I choked out. “I’m sure Evan is going to do whatever Evan puts his mind to.” Carefully chosen words designed to tell the truth, and yet, to someone whose entire emotional landscape depended on systemic denial, they seemed supportive.
    “Oh, Amy, I’m so