Read Online Red Lightning by Laura Pritchett - Free Book Online Page A

didn’t care .”
    I eat more of the not-cake. It’s more like a flat white honey biscuit, and some of it gets stuck in the missing-tooth gap, which stings, but my tongue cleans it out, runs itself gently over the hurt. “Amber, I don’t know how you feel about me being here. I feel like you’re being very brave. I feel like you’re being very generous. Thank you. But if you don’t want to be, well, I’ll leave if you want. You’re the boss right now. But I’d like to stay and hang out for a bit.”
    She headtilts and regards me. “How long?”
    â€œHow long will I stay?” I give her a calm look, which is a lie, a coverup for all the lightning going on underneath. “A coupla days?”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Tess’s STUPID FUCKING nerves
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  attacking her again at random:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  throat closing up,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  pounding heart,
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  dry mouth
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  can’t breathe.
    I pop my neck and think: It depends, Amber. It depends on you. Because a gal can only be strong for so long, and sometimes she just needs to be saved. By someone who cares. Libby, for instance, the one person who helped. She helped in little ways while I grew up. She helped in big ways, by taking my daughter so I could get the hell out of here. So, you see, I’m asking for help without deserving it. And if you say no , well, then I have my Last Resort card in my back pocket.
    â€œThere are no extra rooms here,” she says, and then, because I’m spacing out, she says it again.
    â€œOkay.” But I’m thinking: Do you see, Amber? It’s my Last Resort backpocket card that keeps me trudging on in life, and coming home was the last thing I needed to do before I could play it. But now that it’s down to the wire, I find that I’m scared. Afraid to pull it, afraid to play it.
    â€œAnd I don’t want to share my bedroom.”
    â€œOkay. I totally get that.”
    â€œMaybe you could stay with Kay?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    We both startle when a treebranch hits the roof. The wind is picking up. Her eyebrows suddenly furrow, and she stands. “Do you smell smoke? No one should be burning ditches.”
    I follow her outside the door, and we scan the horizon, our eyes squinted against the wind. There are dry grasslands to the north and to the east, a field of milo to the south, and the dim outline of mountains in the far distance to the west, the haze of the brown cloud that hangs in the atmosphere from all the pollution from the Front Range.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Tess sometimes thinks:
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  You may not be clued in to the earth
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  But the earth is clued in to you.
    I take a few steps away from the house so I can see the horizon. “It feels like a hundred degrees out here. It’s always been too hot here on the plains. That’s why I like the mountains.” I look off to them, whichis where the sun is hanging. “And the angle of the sun. It’s so hard this time of year. It’s always in your eyes. It smells like someone is burning out a ditch, or burning trash in a burn barrel.”
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Tess’s body grows quiet
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  and the world does