Read Online Working Girl by A. E. Woodward - Free Book Online Page B

breathing, needing to get it under control before Chrissy—or even worse, Emerson—comes looking for me. Movies are not for me. I remember why it’s been so long now. The darkness. The silence. Those two things, paired with watching a happily ever after, is too much for me to handle. Reading about happily ever after’s is one thing. Watching them slowly take place in front of me on the screen; it completely undoes me.
    Finally the dizziness starts to subside, and I’m able to take in a full breath. The welcome clarity is marred when I realize I have to start thinking about how I am going to get home, without ruining the rest of Chrissy’s day. My head is pointed towards the sky when I hear the door open behind me.
    “What’s up, Presley?” His voice rings through my ears, straight to my soul and despite it being full of concern, I let out an exasperated sigh, stepping down from the sidewalk to the street to sit in front of the door. Without a word, he joins me.
    “Movies aren’t my thing,” I say, hoping that he’ll sense the tone of my voice and not push me further, because I’m not sure how much longer I can hold it together if he starts being too nice.
    “Why didn’t you say something?”
    “You didn’t give me the chance.”
    He smiles and slides closer to me. Why? It’s not exactly like I’m being warm towards him. In fact, I’m doing my best to be as aloof as possible. I need for him to leave me alone. In order for me to stay focused and get where I need to go, I need to be on my own.
    “Well, this is better anyway. At least out here we can talk.”
    I roll my eyes and silence surrounds us, the chill of the twilight air biting at my skin. “I really just want to be alone.”
    Although he can’t know it, I spend most of my conscious hours alone. As a creature of habit, and hiding while Momma worked, I found it easy to be stuck somewhere with no one but myself. Alone is familiar, and I need Emerson to think that it’s okay for me to be that way because I’m asking for him to leave me be.
    But it’s a lie. I don’t really want to be sitting out here alone. Besides, being next to Emerson is easy. Nice. And that’s the problem. This is exactly what scares me the most: I feel comfortable with him, and the last time that happened with a guy, I almost lost something important to me.
    Sitting next to each other on the sidewalk, our elbows barely touching, it seems simple. Easy, even. I can feel layers of my anxiety peeling away as the comfort surrounds me. But my solace is short-lived as he starts to kick up a conversation again.
    “So what’s your story?”
    Ah, and there it is: the dreaded question. I silently wish for the comfort to return again. It was much easier that way. But as much as I will it to, comfort is an evasive bastard, and so I’m left having to make the situation better myself.
    I have to lie.
    “I don’t have a story.”
    “Everyone has a story,” he argues.
    “Well, I’m too busy still writing mine to be bothered to tell it to you.”
    “Touché.”
    “Means to touch.”
    I jump when I feel the pads of his fingertips brush the length of my arm. Looking up from the ground, I notice that his eyes are already on me, and I feel naked under his gaze. “Well, aren’t you smart.”
    Glaring, I shrug him away. “It’s a nasty side effect of reading as much as I do.”
    “Favorite book?”
    My not-so-subtle hints are not doing the trick. He’s obviously not going anywhere, so I decide to put some distance between us, moving slightly to my left. “The Great Gatsby. I always wanted to be a ‘pretty little fool.’”
    “Why be a fool?”
    “Because then I could be oblivious to all the bad shit in this world.”
    “Without the bad, there’d never be any good.”
    Considering what he’s saying, I stare at him in order to gauge his statement. It’s when I’m looking into his eyes that I know that he genuinely believes what he said. And I don’t know whether to be