Read Online True Letters from a Fictional Life by Kenneth Logan - Free Book Online

and wentover it in my head as the phone rang and rang.
    â€œYou have reached the Fothterth.” It must have been his little brother’s voice. “Pleathe leave uth a methage.”
    â€œHey, thisisJamesLiddelljustcallingtoseehowAaron’sdoingthanksbye.”
    My dad always yells at me for speaking too fast on the phone. I thought about calling again, trying to leave a slow, clear message. I hadn’t even mentioned my number. I’ll call him another day , I thought, walking into my room. Suddenly, I felt like I was being watched—I froze and looked up. Aaron’s alligator PEZ dispenser was looking right at me. It blinked.
    I shook my head. I needed to get out of the house. Derek said he was going out with his folks. I called Hawken. No answer.
    What I felt like doing was hanging out at Derek’s and playing around with his telescope again. The first time he brought Saturn into focus for us, the view gave me a jolt. “That’s really Saturn?” I asked. “We’re really looking at Saturn?”
    Hawken elbowed me away and peered into the telescope. He stood up, looking alarmed. “That’s crazy. How can that be?” Hawken gazed at the fuzzy point of light Derek had pointed out. I gazed at Hawken, just his nose and his wide blue eyes peeking above the collar of his zipped up fleece. He pointed from the telescope to the planet. “It’s crazy that we’re looking at that .”
    â€œIt’s kind of hard putting the two together,” I agreed.One moment, rings and sphere. The next, tiny speck of light. You view something twice and even though it’s the same thing, the two views have nothing to do with each other. That happens with people, too, I guess. You think you’re seeing someone accurately and then—suddenly—it turns out you had only a fuzzy, tiny idea of the real thing. Mark arrives at your front door barefoot one night in November. Hawken comes home crying because you made fun of his reading problem. You find Aaron hysterical in the bathroom. You walk with your pal in the snow one night and he tells you—all sorts of stuff. Total clarity for a moment. And then, in a blink, the distance opens up again.
    As I was trying to sleep that night, I wondered how Aaron was doing. Why had I invited him to that party, anyway? He wouldn’t have gotten hit if I’d just kept my mouth shut. I had wanted to do something nice, but it was stupid of me. I knew who’d be there. Why did I think he would’ve had a good time? And now he might die. Would someone call here if he did? I wondered what Mark was up to—whether he was lying awake in the dark, too. What would he do if they put him in a cell? Push-ups and sit-ups? I wondered what Kevin’s parents had said when the police phoned. When I closed my eyes I’d see Aaron, the yellow gloves behind his head dripping blood onto the snow.
    Hawken and I had an indoor soccer game that Sunday. Our school soccer coach agreed to be our indoor coach, too, butother than that, the team has nothing to do with school. Most of the teams are sponsored by local businesses. They pay for the uniforms and registration fees, and we walk around wearing their ads. Our team’s sponsored by Henry’s Towing, so every Sunday I don my blue T-shirt with a big truck on the front and Number 10 on the back. We play in a sprawling metal-sided, hangar-like building just off the highway, about thirty minutes from where we live. You’re not allowed to spit because it’s artificial turf, this green plastic grass with what looks like potting soil beneath it. The ball moves fast on the stuff, but if you fall or slide, you get a wicked burn that lasts a week. It’s one of my favorite places on the planet. I always go into the game saying that I don’t care if we win or lose, but the reality is I hate losing. My casual attitude gets left on the bench with my sweatshirt. Hawken’s