Read Online This Much Is True by Katherine Owen - Free Book Online

Marla’s. I think my parents were secretly relieved at getting a night off from the pretense of having to act like everything is okay when it clearly isn’t. Normally, I’d have to combat questions, provide enough details, and employ a few innocent lies about my intended plans and whereabouts, but with Holly dead now and my parents all but absent even when present, tonight they didn’t even remember to ask where I was going.
    My father buries himself in his work—performing miracle surgeries. He’s intent on saving everyone else since he couldn’t save Holly. My mother nurses her grief in constant seclusion—the master bedroom door rarely opens—where she takes this necessary solace in silence and these little white pills that make her numb, bestowing her lovely face with a constant faraway look. She is twice removed from all of us, it seems. She’s definitely farthest away from me. She gave me a backhand wave as she trudged her way back up the stairs to her bedroom while my dad kissed my forehead and reached the front door first and raced to open it as I was about to leave. He told me to text them later before bed. I’d just nodded and promised to check in at some point and beat a hasty retreat to Marla’s car, completely undone by his long-sought-after affection but unable to properly respond when he finally gave it to me.
    Yes; it’s true. Adam and Tessa Landon are unaware of Charlie Masterson’s Memorial Day weekend party. They’re hardly aware it’s a three-day weekend or that Memorial Day is Monday, or that I graduate in ten days and leave for New York in seventeen. It’s been more than three months since Holly’s death, but it feels like yesterday. The grief is just as palpable in our house. The day we came home from Holly’s funeral still feels like the worst. We just sat there for hours and stared into space without saying a single word to each other. We seemed to wait for the darkness to descend outside like it had so effectively penetrated the inside of all of us. The pain is just as raw and visceral now as it was then for me, for my family, for all of us.
    It doesn’t matter. Upon this, my parents and I agree; none of it matters anymore.
    * * *
    I imbibe in some alcohol-laced concoction because my sister isn’t alive to say, ‘let’s go, ’ and my parents are too grief-stricken to notice or see me at all these days.
    Meanwhile, Marla is full of laughter. Contrived or otherwise, I still wonder where it comes from. I can only watch as she wanders off with some more-than-casually-interested guy with a promise to be right back.
    Her intention to make Charlie Masterson jealous seems to be working. I note the golden guy flinch unconsciously as she drapes herself all over this other guy. A platitude, no doubt. I almost feel sorry for Charlie. He’s become a somewhat innocent bystander in all of this drama and unable to take his eyes off of Marla since we arrived over an hour ago. Marla’s first mission is accomplished. Charlie Masterson is definitely taking notice of her every move and is undeniably paying dearly for his previous transgressions and cavalier ways with Marla’s heart.
    Good. On some level, this seems good, right?
    Untethered from Marla, for the moment, I must admit I carry a modicum of resentment for my best friend. It’s there for just a split second, where I feel this irrepressible bitterness because Marla Stone can still laugh. So easily. She loved Holly, probably as much as I do… did… but she can still laugh so easily. Marla stills sees the good in the world, instead of all the oppressive nothingness that I so clearly see. For just a brief second, I resent her for it—for being happy, for being able to laugh, for being able to breathe.
    And then it’s gone. Indifference takes its place and I openly welcome the respite that comes with feeling nothing at all while Marla waves to me one last time as she seductively makes her way up the stairs with the casually interested