Read Online This Raging Light by Estelle Laure - Free Book Online

being so cynical, Dig,” Eden says. “She needs this. It’s like she has a fairy godmother or something.”
    â€œIt was like this when you got back here from dropping me off today?” I ask.
    â€œYup.”
    â€œThat means somebody did it in the clear light of day,” Digby says. “That means they knew how long you’d be gone, that you’d have Wren with you, that they had to hurry. It means someone has been watching. Closely.”
    â€œWell,” Eden says, looking less gleeful.
    â€œYeah,” Digby says, “it’s troubling.”
    â€œI have to start locking my door,” I say. No one in this town locks.
    Digby leans against the counter. He is always leaning. “I guess this isn’t exactly a hostile action. It’s kamikaze generosity, for sure.”
    I’m overheating. I want everyone to leave. I need to think and I can’t, not while I’m standing here staring at all this food, and not with these two redheaded swizzle sticks hovering over me.
    â€œAt least you don’t have to worry about food for a while,” Eden offers. “Although that is a lot of carbs.” She kicks up her legs and scooches herself onto the counter. “Okay, so there’s one more piece of not-so-great news.”
    â€œReally?” I say. “Did a wall collapse?”
    â€œNo. Wren came home with a note. Mrs. LaRouche wants to speak to your mom.”
    Everything in me contracts.
    â€œMrs. LaRouche was the best,” Digby says. “You remember how she used to get us to be quiet?”
    â€œBum bum bee dum bum”
—Eden sings.
    â€œBum bum,”
I answer flatly.
    â€œI don’t think it’s a big deal,” Eden says. “It’s just . . .”
    â€œGoing to be challenging to produce a nonexistent parent.”
    â€œRight.”
    I cover my face. Count to three. Uncover my face. Nope, it’s still here, still this earth, this life.
    Eden’s face scrunches. “Lu.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou have a bloody nose.” Digby reaches for a paper towel from the new ginormous pile that has magically manifested itself on my counter. The expensive kind.
    â€œThere are tissues, too,” Eden says, pointing to the living room. “And toothpaste, mouthwash, Q-tips . . .”
    â€œStop!” I can’t. I can’t breathe, and it’s not because of the blood that is dripping over my lips. It is all happening at once, and I can’t make sense of it, of any of it, and I want to laugh just like I heard Dad doing. It’s bubbling right under the surface, and if I let it go, I’ll never stop. When Digby pushes the towel against my nose, I grab it from him and bat at his hand. My chest goes in and out, up and down.
    Eden stares. “Dude,” she says.
    I find the couch in the living room while I hold my nose, and they are shadows on me and I want them to go away, need them to go away so I can think. I’ve got numbers, so many numbers, doing Irish jigs on my head, and Mom, and her eyes they are big and so blue and so empty and they are all over me and my short shorts hot pants sexy shoes and makeup, and Dad who knows where, and a best friend who actually looks scared and everyone else and their perfect simple lives and me failing Wren all all the time and some Good Samaritan who knows and a love, a love who is standing right in front of me offering me his help and is so out of reach and I am so alone and I need them to go away.
    â€œYou’re going to be okay,” Digby says. He makes a move for my hand and I jerk it back. “All this is going to be fine.”
    â€œGo home,” I say, and my voice is hard. I’ve never heard my own voice like that.
    Neither have the twins, apparently, because they both look like I just smacked them.
    I wipe the blood from my nose, will the bleeding to stop. I march to the sink, splash water on my face, wash my hands,