Read Online Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Laurie Halse Anderson
Tags: Fiction, Death, Family & Relationships, Death; Grief; Bereavement, Juvenile Fiction, Psychology, Social Issues, Young Adult Fiction, Death & Dying, Friendship, Young Women, best friends, Psychopathology, Adolescence, Health & Daily Living, Diseases; Illnesses & Injuries, Stepfamilies, Guilt, Eating Disorders, Anorexia nervosa
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named the baby Lia and lived happily ever after.
The skin on the edge of my thumb rests on the cusp between safety and flame.
The real story is not poetic. Mom got pregnant. Dad married her. They couldn’t stand each other by the time I was born. They were random gods who mated by a wine-dark sea. They should have turned me into a fish or a flower when they had the chance.
Mom: She looks like hell. I want her to move back with me until she graduates.
Dad, throwing napkin on table: Oh, for Christ’s sake, Chloe . . .
The two of them will fight forever.
I blow out the candle.
Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses PLAY.
When she falls asleep, I flip through the channels one after the other after the other.
Dr. Marrigan leaves an hour later, without bothering to come up and say good night or notice that I haven’t unpacked most of my boxes or see what a good almost-sister I can be. The front door closes hard with a muffled whoomp that pushes air against all the windows. Professor Overbrook bolts the door and sets the security system. I turn out the princess light next to the bed. Emma breathes through her open mouth.
Ghosts dare not enter here. I fall asleep with my head on a raggedy elephant.
“Wake up, Lia!” Emma shouts in my ear. “You’re going to be late! You’re going to be in trouble.”
I’m under Emma’s tie-dyed comforter, my head on the elephant. Her room smells like dryer sheets and cats.
“Don’t go back to sleep again!”
“What day is it?” I ask.
“You know,” she says.
Today is waking Wednesday.
History class is a genocide lecture, ending with ten minutes of photographs of Polish children killed by the Germans in World War II. A couple of girls cry and the guys who usually make smart-ass remarks stare out the windows. Our Trig teacher is deeply, deeply disappoint-ed in our last test results. We have another nap movie in Physics: An Introduction to Momentum and Collision .
My English teacher flips out because the government is demanding we take yet another test to assess our reading skills, because we’re seniors and pretty soon we might have to read or something.
I eat in my car: diet soda (0) + lettuce (15) + 8 tablespoons salsa (40) + hard-boiled egg white (16) = lunch (71).
Two minutes before the buzzer sounds to set us free at the end of the day, the loudspeaker orders me to see the counselor, Ms. Rostoff, in the conference room. Most of the girls’ soccer team is there, too, along with Cassie’s friends from the stage crew and a couple of girls from the musical. Mira, my study partner from sophomore Span-ish, waves to me when I walk in. She was in our Girl Scout troop when we were little.
We are here to share our feelings and discuss a memorial to Cassie’s memory, “so her spirit will live on.” The room is freezing.
Ms. Rostoff has boxes of tissues decorated with kit-tens lined up on the table. Two gallons of discount-store red punch and tiny paper cups are arranged in a lovely display next to the plate of generic black-and-white cookies. Ms. Rostoff believes in the healing power of snacks.
She loves me better than anybody because I am such a mess I have to see a real shrink in the real world, and I have to go to the college where my dad teaches, so advis-ing me took two minutes.
The drama girls take over the beat-up couch and the rug in front of it. The soccer team wheels in spinny chairs from the conference room. I sit on the floor near the door, my back against the heating vent.
While we wait for stragglers, the soccer team complains about not getting enough time in the weight room, and the drama girls whine about the new director, a prima donna who has confused our school with Broadway.
I measure
The skin on the edge of my thumb rests on the cusp between safety and flame.
The real story is not poetic. Mom got pregnant. Dad married her. They couldn’t stand each other by the time I was born. They were random gods who mated by a wine-dark sea. They should have turned me into a fish or a flower when they had the chance.
Mom: She looks like hell. I want her to move back with me until she graduates.
Dad, throwing napkin on table: Oh, for Christ’s sake, Chloe . . .
The two of them will fight forever.
I blow out the candle.
Emma hears me come up the stairs and asks me to watch a movie with her. I stick Band-Aids on my weeping cuts, put on pink pajamas so we match, and snuggle with her under her rainbow comforter. She arranges all of her stuffed animals around us in a circle, everyone facing the TV, then presses PLAY.
When she falls asleep, I flip through the channels one after the other after the other.
Dr. Marrigan leaves an hour later, without bothering to come up and say good night or notice that I haven’t unpacked most of my boxes or see what a good almost-sister I can be. The front door closes hard with a muffled whoomp that pushes air against all the windows. Professor Overbrook bolts the door and sets the security system. I turn out the princess light next to the bed. Emma breathes through her open mouth.
Ghosts dare not enter here. I fall asleep with my head on a raggedy elephant.
“Wake up, Lia!” Emma shouts in my ear. “You’re going to be late! You’re going to be in trouble.”
I’m under Emma’s tie-dyed comforter, my head on the elephant. Her room smells like dryer sheets and cats.
“Don’t go back to sleep again!”
“What day is it?” I ask.
“You know,” she says.
Today is waking Wednesday.
History class is a genocide lecture, ending with ten minutes of photographs of Polish children killed by the Germans in World War II. A couple of girls cry and the guys who usually make smart-ass remarks stare out the windows. Our Trig teacher is deeply, deeply disappoint-ed in our last test results. We have another nap movie in Physics: An Introduction to Momentum and Collision .
My English teacher flips out because the government is demanding we take yet another test to assess our reading skills, because we’re seniors and pretty soon we might have to read or something.
I eat in my car: diet soda (0) + lettuce (15) + 8 tablespoons salsa (40) + hard-boiled egg white (16) = lunch (71).
Two minutes before the buzzer sounds to set us free at the end of the day, the loudspeaker orders me to see the counselor, Ms. Rostoff, in the conference room. Most of the girls’ soccer team is there, too, along with Cassie’s friends from the stage crew and a couple of girls from the musical. Mira, my study partner from sophomore Span-ish, waves to me when I walk in. She was in our Girl Scout troop when we were little.
We are here to share our feelings and discuss a memorial to Cassie’s memory, “so her spirit will live on.” The room is freezing.
Ms. Rostoff has boxes of tissues decorated with kit-tens lined up on the table. Two gallons of discount-store red punch and tiny paper cups are arranged in a lovely display next to the plate of generic black-and-white cookies. Ms. Rostoff believes in the healing power of snacks.
She loves me better than anybody because I am such a mess I have to see a real shrink in the real world, and I have to go to the college where my dad teaches, so advis-ing me took two minutes.
The drama girls take over the beat-up couch and the rug in front of it. The soccer team wheels in spinny chairs from the conference room. I sit on the floor near the door, my back against the heating vent.
While we wait for stragglers, the soccer team complains about not getting enough time in the weight room, and the drama girls whine about the new director, a prima donna who has confused our school with Broadway.
I measure
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