Read Online Regret List by Jessica Billings - Free Book Online Page A

My
laugh sounded too loud and I quickly silenced myself, glancing down
the hallway. “Is your dad home? Is it okay that I’m here?”
    Jason nodded, leaning against the wall. “It’s fine.
He’s not around right now, so he won’t even know you were here, but
I doubt he’d mind anyway. He doesn’t care who I have over, as long
as we don’t destroy the place.”
    “That’s how my mom is,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“Or was. Sometimes she wants to know every little detail of my life
and other times she could care less.”
    “It’s not that he doesn’t care about me,” he replied,
sounding defensive. “I mean, he’s just really easy-going. He knows
I wouldn’t do anything really dumb and he stays pretty busy.”
    My face flushed as I realized I had implied that his
dad didn’t care about his life. “So where is he today?” I
asked.
    “I think he’s at some church thing,” he said. “I used
to see you at those events back when we were younger, you know.” I
shook my head. I hadn’t known. I didn’t remember anyone from
church, except Asher. Oh, and that stupid girl who stole my
glasses, but she doesn’t really count. That was back in Chicago,
anyway. “How come you don’t go anymore?” he asked.
    “Hey, you’re not there, either,” I pointed out.
    He rolled his eyes and walked over to his bed,
sitting down and beckoning me over. I carefully picked my way over
my discarded clothes and plopped down next to him. “Make yourself
comfortable. I normally go to the church events, but you texted a
little while before we were leaving, so I decided to stick around
here.”
    “Sorry,” I said quickly. “You should have gone. I
could’ve come over a different time.”
    He shook his head. “It’s not a big deal. Hanging out
with you sounded like a lot more fun. So why don’t you come to
church anymore? I see your mom there every week.”
    Ugh. Of all the subjects he could have brought up.
Remember the story about Coyote? Well, my mom and I had come into
conflict about religion a long time before that. And well, I guess
I kind of misled you with that earlier story. Sorry about that. You
see, my mom wasn’t totally overreacting when she lectured me about
God and tried to get me to stop hanging out with Asher. The
troubles started a long time before that.
    Like I mentioned earlier, after my dad died, my mom
and I became regular church-goers. And believe it or not, I loved
it. I wasn’t so big on the whole religion side of it, but it was
the one day of week full of relief, so different from our life at
home. At home, anything and everything set my mom off: the sound of
a car’s tires squealing off in the distance, a forgotten pill
hidden in the corner of the bathroom, or even something invisible
that I couldn’t see or hear.
    I was walking on tiptoes through the house, trying
desperately to distract her from her memories with little success.
I’m not saying she was much better at church, but at least I wasn’t
the one in charge of taking care of her there. At church, when she
burst into tears for seemingly no reason, she was surrounded by her
friends who hugged and comforted her. They swept me away to play
with the other kids or talk about school, so I didn’t have to see
her break down. I loved those days.
    Things between church and me started to go downhill
few years after my dad died, when I was ten. It was around
Christmastime, which was the worst time of year for my mom. She was
okay for most of the year then, but around Christmas, she started
shutting herself in her room and quietly crying again. I was a
nervous wreck for most of the holiday season and I think everyone
at church knew it, because they paid me an extra amount of
attention.
    Like probably every church everywhere, we were
holding a Christmas show where they picked a bunch of the kids to
sing in front of everyone, dressed up like angels. I was one of the
angels (with a solo, even) and I was ridiculously excited. Part of
it was