Read Online Saving June by Hannah Harrington - Free Book Online

when Aunt Helen and my mother come in, carrying brown grocery bags. Mom’s hair is bushy and unbrushed, and she has on zero makeup. She’s like the opposite of Mrs. Sterling. Usually she’s the opposite of Mrs. Sterling in that she looks put-together without being overdone, classy without trying too hard, but now she just looks sad.
    Mom withdraws an egg carton from the bag, sets it on the counter and just stares at it until Aunt Helen reaches over and puts it inside the refrigerator.
    “Harper,” calls Aunt Helen, “would you come in here for a moment? I need to speak with you.”
    This can only be bad. These types of “discussions” never seem to work out in my favor. I mute the television—I’ve landed on some documentary special about Area 51—and obediently trudge into the kitchen. Aunt Helen purses her thin lips as she leans against the refrigerator door, fingering the large bronze cross that always hangs around her neck.
    “We’ve been discussing the…current situation,” she says. Current situation. What is with all of these euphemisms?
Adjustments. Current situation.
No one can just outright say the ugly truth:
Your sister is dead, your mother is unraveling at the seams, your father is a regular Houdini who has once again pulled his well-honed disappearing act and you have the emotional capacity of a cinder block.
“Your mother feels it would be best—and I agree—for me to come and stay with you both for a short while,” Aunt Helen continues. “Just to look after things.”
    The idea of Aunt Helen living here is enough to make my skin crawl. It’s not that I don’t appreciate what she’s doing, especially for my mother, but I also know what I can and can’t handle. Aunt Helen around twenty-four seven, hovering over me, shoving her religious-guidance crap down my throat, falls distinctly into the latter category.
    “Okay,” I say slowly. “Do you really think that’s necessary?”
    “Someone
needs to be here for your mother, since you seem to be having no qualms about gallivanting around with your friends and leaving her to fend for herself,” she says reproachfully. “Do you really think that’s what your sister would have wanted?” Her accusatory tone cuts through me like a knife.
    My eyes shift from her to my mother, shocked, but Mom won’t even look at me. I can’t believe I’m being ambushed. I mean, I know Aunt Helen’s never liked me. I get it. June was always the golden child while I’m the rotten egg. I never even had to do anything to make myself look badexcept be average in comparison to her saintly self. This is nothing new.
    June wouldn’t be so selfish. June wouldn’t be so cold. June wouldn’t abandon her daughterly duties. Except that she did, permanently, leaving me to take the reins of a role I cannot possibly fill. But no one wants to think about that.
    My sister is dead and I’m still being measured up against her ghost. I’m not even surprised.
    So why does it still hurt?
    The hurt winds its way through me and curls my fists at my sides. My blood buzzes in my head so loud I can’t think. I’m pretty sure if she says another word I’m going to throw something, possibly at
her.
So instead of doing something I know I’ll regret, I storm out of the kitchen and don’t stop until I’m up the stairs and in my room. I take the disc out of my Discman and throw it at the wall as hard as I can. It doesn’t make much of a sound, just bounces off and rolls onto the floor, sitting there in one piece, mocking me. After some pacing back and forth, I put the disc back in the player and turn the volume up as loud as it will go.
    For the rest of the night, no one comes to knock on my door and apologize, or see if I’m okay, or even to try and coax me down for dinner. It’s so stupid, because all I’ve wanted is space, and now that I have it, there’s this part of me that is just so achingly lonely I could die.
    The idea of California tugs at me again. It’s not