Read Online Soulprint by Megan Miranda - Free Book Online

little too forcefully, leaving no room for discussion. I will not be calm and malleable and content. Not again.
    He wrinkles his nose, and it makes him seem years younger. Now that he’s not in mission mode, with his perfect stride and his single-minded focus, he looks like a different version of himself. His brown eyes roam, and he looks a little lost. His dark hair falls across his forehead as he leans over to rifle through the white box, and his entire face takes on a look of uncertainty, despite his words. His teeth catch his lower lip as he tears open a disinfectant wipe, and he becomes someone else.
    I imagine him in the kitchen of a house, grabbing half a bagel from the toaster, holding it between his teeth as he searches for his books, tossing them into his bag, like a familiar scene I have watched on the television. I imagine him running out the front door, shouting a good-bye to his parents over his shoulder, and Casey waiting for him on the porch.
    I imagine too much, I know this.
    â€œUh,” Cameron says, looking behind me at the glass shower, not unlike the one in my room. The glass here is clear but distorted, as if there’s a film obscuring it. “Hot shower. Take one. You can’t get the stitches wet after, and I want to try to prevent infection as much as possible … and, no offense, but you reek.” He wrinkles his nose again. “Also, you don’t look so good.”
    He turns on the water for me, and the pipes groan. Cameron shifts nervously on his feet as I attempt to peel the shirt over my head. “I’m sorry,” he says, turning around. “I’m not allowed to leave you alone.”
    But I don’t care at all. I want in the hot shower, and I’m already mostly undressed. “I’m used to it,” I say. He acts as if I’m not used to people watching me all the time. I barely even notice him as I step under the hot stream of water, his outline hazy on the other side of the glass.
    There’s a bar of soap, and I use it on my knotted hair, on my grimy skin, under my brittle nails. I clean around the wound as best I can, though it makes me wince. The hot water stings my scalp, and nothing has ever felt so good. I brace myself against the walls of the shower and let my entire body relax. I let myself breathe. I am out.
I am out
.
    I can see Cameron, blurry through the glass, still facing away. “You okay?” he asks.
    â€œYes.”
    I see his leg bouncing, but I don’t want to leave the water yet. “So …,” he says, “how do you know Dom?”
    I wait a moment before I speak. “How do
you
know Dom?” I respond.
    And I’m surprised when he answers. “I don’t. I didn’t. Casey did. I’m here to help Casey.” It’s like he needs to tell me that he is not my ally here. I appreciate the honesty, but I already understood that.
    â€œHe was a guard,” I say, giving him a piece of information for the piece he has given me.
    â€œYeah, I know. But it seems like you know him better than that,” he says, like he’s accusing me, though I can’t be sure why he is or why I care.
    It’s embarrassing, is what it is. It’s embarrassing to admit how I know him. That I was naive. That I wasn’t thinking. That I trusted so easily. “I don’t know why he’d want to rescue me,” is all I say, because it’s true.
    â€œGuess you made an impression,” he says, and I turn off the water.
    I laugh, and it sounds fake, like how I’d laugh back on the island. For a purpose. For a reaction. I grab a towel off the rack, wrap it around myself, and stand in front of Cameron. His head is tilted to the side, and his brown eyes are looking into mine, as if he can see through them. I close my eyes and look away.
    â€œHe pretended to be my friend,” I say. And I decide to tell him. I’ll tell him so he knows that I will not fall for it