Read Online Searching for Sky by Jillian Cantor - Free Book Online

different, that River is already different. And not just the way he looks, either, but the way he seems. He stares at me now, as if we haven’t shared hundreds of nights and days together, as if here in this strange place he’s not even sure he knows me anymore. And it’s the first time I understand it, that Island is lost to us now, maybe forever. The thought sinks in my chest like a rock in the water that shared River’s name, hard and heavy, and for a moment I’m not sure I can breathe.
    “Sky,” he says, reaching for my arms, but I shrug him off. “You’re going to go with her, and you’re going to have a good life here.”
    “And what about you? You’ll come with me?” I ask, my voice still small.
    “I can’t,” he says.
    “Why not?”
    “Because. I just can’t, all right?” He runs his fingers through his shorter hair, and I can tell that he’s still not used to it, that he still misses what we’ve lost, too, even if he isn’t going to admit it.
    “Riv.” I reach for him, but now he’s the one who pulls back.
    “Listen,” he says. “Everything is different now. And we need to figure things out here on our own, okay?”
    “Our own?”
    “You’ll be with your grandmother. You’ll love it.”
    “And you?” He shrugs. “River,” I say, “I’m not going anywhere without you. I’ve been with you forever, and I’m not going to let these green people keep me from seeing you.”
    He shakes his head. “They didn’t,” he says softly.
    “Yes, they did. I’ve been asking for you since I woke up.”
    “I know,” he says, and then he looks down and lowers his voice. “I told them I thought it was better if we didn’t see each other. I told them I didn’t want to see you.”
    His words are so sharp, like that stone cutting through the belly of the fish, and now he’s cutting through me, ripping out my guts, throwing them away carelessly. Red entrails twisting in the wind, staining all this awful whiteness.
    “I don’t understand,” I whisper.
    He reaches out and twirls the end of my braid one last time. “You take care of yourself.” His voice trembles, and I think maybe he wants to cry, except his face is solidly emotionless, his skin smooth the way I remember it as a child. He’s running next to me on Beach, sitting in the sand, drawing with me.
    “River,” I say one last time.
    “No,” he says. “Not River.” He pauses. “Lucas.”

    Back in my own space, I find myself crying. On Island the only time I remember feeling this way was after I dragged my mother’slimp body into Ocean. But now there are tears I don’t even know I had, and they come and they come, until my chest rattles like a trap that has snapped its kill, and suddenly the entire world is dead, silent.
    “I’ve got good news,” Dr. Cabot says, stepping in through the coming-in place. She stares at me for a moment, raising her thick blond eyebrows, as if she thinks about asking me what’s wrong, but then she seems to change her mind. “DNA is back, and you are who we thought you are. We’re clearing you with customs as we speak, and then we’ll be able to release you into your grandmother’s custody.” She pauses. “Of course, I will be happy to assist you with whatever you need after that, but your grandmother insisted she’s bringing in her own private psychiatrist to work with you in her home.”
    “And what if I don’t want to go?” I whisper.
    “You’re a minor in the state of California,” she says. “And so by law we have to …”
    I don’t understand what she’s saying, and though she is still talking, I stop listening because I do understand I’m going to have to go … somewhere, that I can’t stay here, in Military Hospital, the whiteness, forever. I wouldn’t even want to. I can’t go back to Island, and even if I could, I would be alone, and I wouldn’t want to be there alone. River—no, Lucas —doesn’t want to be with me here, now that he has a choice. On