Read Online What We Leave Behind by Rochelle B. Weinstein - Free Book Online Page A

leaves on each branch whistling in the wind, the sound as soothing as anything I’d ever heard. Up there I was free from the troubles below. I could literally sit for hours, and sometimes did. My dream was to one day have an enormous tree house, where I could sleep, watch movies, listen to music, and dream. No one could reach me, no one would bother me, except my mother, or maybe Beth, who would serve me meals via a pulley created from a basket and a strand of rope. I had it all planned out, with the exception of where I’d plug my TV in, and where I’d go to the bathroom, and, I guess, well, a lot had to be figured out.
    I decided early on that trees were the only living things in the world that could give to the world without expecting anything in return.
    “Watch it!” I heard from below, a voice of panic.
    Before I knew what was happening, I felt the branch give way, my foot buckling, having nothing to hold onto. I didn’t want to look down. I knew how high I had climbed. I felt my body slide against the rough bark, a searing pain gripping my left underside. At least my hands were safely around its torso.
    I had fallen approximately four feet before my foot landed on another solid branch. My heart was racing. I saw that I was bleeding through my blouse, the red turning my white T-shirt crimson.
    Amy was perched on the ground, hunched over with both hands over her eyes. She hadn’t wanted to see me splatter. Jonas was there, and although I couldn’t see him, I could feel his presence somewhere below, urging me to jump. “I’ll catch you!” he cried out.
    I had nowhere to go but down. The branch I was resting on was already beginning to waver. The second branch broke. I gasped, while my body dragged me down another two feet until I landed magnificently, and effortlessly, in Jonas’s arms.
    “Are you okay?” he asked.
    “I don’t know,” I answered.
    “That’s not funny, Jessie. You could have really hurt yourself,” he said. “What if I wasn’t there to catch you?”
    I hadn’t considered that. There was something about Jonas that led me to believe he’d always be there to catch me.
    “Look at you,” he continued. “You’re a mess.” More blood had seeped onto his shirt.
    “It doesn’t hurt,” I said bravely, pulling my hair back into a rubber band.
    All this time, little Amy was still hovered over, afraid to look up.
    “She’s okay, Ames,” he called out to her. “You can get up now.”
    I turned to find her beautiful green eyes peeking through the delicate fingers.
    “You scared me, Jessie! Don’t do that again,” she said, running toward us, offering us a hug.
    Sandwiched between the two of them lightened the load of my fears. My heart had been momentarily racing; it still was—beating stronger and faster than usual—when I realized it wasn’t my heart at all. It was Jonas’s.
    He carried me into the hospital, where my mother begrudgingly cleaned my wounds and held back from giving me the third degree on my birthday.
    Amy and Jonas were waiting when I walked out of the ER. They looked glum and annoyed.
    “I’m sorry,” I said, giving in to their shared displeasure.
    “I don’t know why I deal with you, Jessie Parker,” came a frustrated voice from Jonas. “You’ve been nothing but trouble since I met you.”
    I surveyed this good-looking boy before me, remembering the way his heart was beating frantically against my shirt. “You were worried about me.”
    “Who wouldn’t be worried about someone falling twenty feet out of a tree?”
    “I’m not just someone, Jonas.”
    Amy Levy was gliding back and forth across the pine-scented linoleum floor practicing graceful ballet moves. I followed her with my eyes.
    “You’re right, Jessie, you’re not just someone,” Jonas said. “You’re a little pain in the ass who thinks it’s funny to shock people. It’s not funny. Especially when something could happen to you. Isn’t it enough I have to worry about my dad? Do I