Read Online What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin - Free Book Online Page A

to go to the bathroom.”
    More snickers. Mr. Hansen let out a heavy sigh and handed her a pass. It was everything Kelly could do not to leap out of the classroom, but she made herself take it slow. She made herself walk, not run, down the hall to the pay phone outside the nurse’s office because running would get her stopped by a hall monitor or janitor. She knew this. It was the way life worked. Try to rush something, you get delayed. You break the rules, bad things happen.
    Once she got to the pay phone, her heart starting pounding. In her mind, she told herself, It will be fine . Before she could think too long,she threw her quarter into the slot, plucked the Denny’s matchbook out of the front pocket of her corduroys, and dialed Len’s number.
    It rang and rang and rang and rang.
    Not home . She was about to hang up when, finally, a woman answered.
    Kelly’s stomach dropped. “Who is this?”
    â€œWho is this ?”
    She shut her eyes, felt her cheeks flushing. “Is Len there? Sorry. I’m just . . . I’m looking for my friend Bellamy and I don’t have her number and so I’m wondering if maybe—”
    â€œLen?”
    â€œHe’s friends with my friend Bellamy and . . . uh . . .”
    â€œIs Len your boyfriend or something?”
    She cleared her throat. “I met him the other day. He gave me this number.”
    The woman started to laugh.
    â€œHe did. I swear.”
    â€œYou sound young. How old are you, anyway? Twelve?”
    Kelly exhaled hard. “No.”
    â€œHoney, trust me on this,” the woman said. “Len does not want to see you.”
    â€œ You don’t know that . He gave me this number. He told me to call .”
    The woman laughed some more. “This number,” she said, “is a pay phone.”
    Kelly’s cheeks burned. She slammed down the receiver, her neck hot, her throat swelling, that awful tingle starting in her belly, coursing through her . . . same thing she had felt on her first day back at school two years ago, working the combination on her locker next to Catherine’s empty one and knowing she had no one now. No sister to follow around. No chance of a friend.
    Len had given her a made-up number.
    She’d told him it was her first time. She hadn’t planned to tell him that—she had wanted him to think it was no big deal, that she was like Bellamy. But the pot had felt like truth serum and his hands were crawling all over her and she’d wanted him to know. She’d wanted him to know how important this was and how, after it happened, she’d never be the same. He’d given her a Kleenex. He’d written down his number on the back of a matchbook and slipped it to her like a present. “ So you’ll think of me when you light up. ”
    Why bother lying like that? Why bother writing down a made-up phone number when she hadn’t even asked? Was it some joke? Was all of it—Bellamy and her house and the pot and everything—was all of it a joke that Len had been in on?
    â€œLen likes you. I can tell.”
    Kelly felt that heat pressing up against the backs of her eyes. She knew she was going to cry. She couldn’t be here any longer. Her legs moved beneath her, like they were a separate machine, coming to her rescue, propelling her down the halls and lurching her to safety.
    â€œNo running in the halls!” one of the janitors shouted. But Kelly pretended not to hear him. She didn’t care about breaking rules anymore.
    Before she could think very long about what she was doing, Kelly was out the front door of the school, and she was rushing down the steps, the sun too bright, the sidewalk hot beneath the wavy soles of her sandals.
    It was an uncommonly warm day for this time of year . . . same as it had been two years ago, the stifling air from outside billowing into their house when Catherine opened the door for the last time. A blast of oven-heat