Read Online When You Go Away by Jessica Barksdale Inclan - Free Book Online Page A

Brooke, but then he began to cry, leaning on Grandpa's chest.  Carly couldn't believe it.  She tried to remember the last time Ryan had cried instead of swallowing down his tears and blinking fast at the hardest moments, even when their father left without saying goodbye.  At the sound of her brother's sadness, Carly began to cry, too, but she felt better.  Maybe Grandpa was the change that would make things okay.  Finally, something good would happen.
     
    
     
    They were at Mel's Diner on Main Street, their bags packed and stowed in Grandpa's Corvair, a car so loud and strange looking it made Carly laugh to see it.  Grandpa had once told her how he bought it when their mother was little and how it was the one thing Grandma Janice didn't want after the divorce.  The big engine sounded like an earthquake, but Carly had always loved driving in it, the top down, her hair blowing up behind her.
         Ryan had finished his second hamburger and second chocolate shake, and Carly had managed to eat an entire double cheeseburger with bacon plus fries.  If she hadn't been so hungry, she would have worried about all the fat she was eating because she knew it caused cellulite (she'd read it in the Marie Claire her mother used to subscribe to).  It had been weeks since Carly had been really, truly full, sick of the frozen dinners her mother heated up.
         "Okay."  Grandpa slid back into the booth.  "I talked to your friend Rosie.  Brooke's doing better already.  They have her on medication, and the fever's down."
         "What's going to happen?"  Ryan asked, wiping his mouth.
         "I'm going to meet her and the doctors and some other folks back at the hospital in the morning after I take you two to school.  Rosie seems like a real fine lady.  And I'm going to call your Uncle Noel, Grandmother Mackenzie, and hopefully your dad."
         "What about Mom?"  Ryan said.
          Grandpa shook his head, and Carly realized Ryan had been asking the same question for hours and nobody--not Rosie, not the paramedics, not Grandpa--could answer the question.
         "So, we better get home.  I need to set you up and get you all organized for school tomorrow."  Grandpa pulled out his wallet and picked up the bill.
         "Do we have to go to school?  I want to see Brooke.  I want to know what's going on,” Carly said, amazed at herself.  For days, all she'd really wanted was space between her and her sister.  She’d been desperate to stop smelling in the sweet, cloying scent of her sister's skin and pee, not wanting to look at her peg and her trach plug and the red spots on the backs of her thighs and butt.  She'd wanted to storm out of the bedroom and leave the apartment, not even bothering to close the door; she wanted to walk all the way back home where she used to belong, where she'd been happy for so long.  Now she'd gotten the space she wanted, a whole two hours, but she already missed Brooke, the way she opened her eyes wider when Carly spoke, the gravelly strangeness of her five-year-old voice.
         Grandpa Carl looked at Carly, his eyes dark like her own.  "No.  You don't have to go to school.  I'll just call them.  Ryan?"
         Ryan looked down at his plate.  He probably wanted to tag after Quinn and smoke cigarettes.  They must cut school all the time anyway, so he wouldn't have to sit through geometry or Spanish and imagine what was happening to Brooke.  He could hang out at Broadway Plaza and check out girls in the sunshine and forget about his sister altogether, just like he'd been doing since they’d moved.  Thinking about all the time Ryan had left her alone with Brooke made her mad, as angry as she was after the paramedics left, knowing she was the only one who cared.  But then Ryan said, "I want to go to the hospital, too.  I want to know what's going to happen."
         Grandpa Carl nodded and counted out money and put it on top of the bill.  "Well,