Carry Yourself Back to Me by Reed Deborah

Author:Reed, Deborah [Reed, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Publisher: AmazonEncore
Published: 2011-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Streams of sunlight bent through the leaves, reflecting the amber glow of ripe peaches. Annie clung to a ladder high inside the tree and grabbed hold of peach. Her fingers sank into the overripe flesh, and there were other moist patches of brownish orange where the insects had gotten there first.

Two rows over Calder was singing “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” by Elton John and Kiki Dee.

“I couldn’t if I tried,” Annie sang back, and Calder laughed at the way she exaggerated the drawl.

She was about to toss the peach into the “rotten” bucket when a bee landed between her finger and thumb. She was aware of more buzzing in the trees. Mr. Peterson always warned them not to swat. “They’ll come back after you,” he’d say. “You’ll get turned around and they’ll come back after you from behind just as sure as I’m standing here.”

Annie had never been stung. Not once in all this country full of lush growing things and the equally rotting dead, had she ever been stung.

She shook the bee gently to the side, but it clung like it was glued. She watched as its head dipped into the moist insides of the peach without leaving her skin. She thought to lean her hand and release it like a ladybug against a branch. She thought it would simply walk off. But when she reached her hand out toward the branch she jerked back and nearly fell off the ladder at the sight of Josh Pinckney’s wispy hair on the other side of her tree.

“Don’t go breaking my heart,” Calder sang out.

A sharp sting between her fingers drew her head down. She slapped at the bee and dropped the peach. The stinger poked like a splinter from her yellow-stained skin. Pain seared through her hand. “Hey, Kiki!” Calder yelled. “What’s going on over there?” Pain spread to her wrist. She couldn’t think of what to do next. She didn’t remember climbing down the ladder but she must have because the next thing she knew she was surrounded by the inescapable smell of peaches spoiling in the heat.

She sat on the ground and rocked the ache deep inside her arm. Flies buzzed her head. The grass beyond the grove confused her. Everything seemed out of place. She didn’t know how long she was sitting there. All she knew was the sun was hot on her scalp when she quit moving. Her eyes itched and puffed as if her face were filling with water.

“Hey!” She finally thought to holler for somebody, anybody. Her voice sounded like it came from somewhere else.

The bee sting was the cause of all the pain. She knew this. But she kept seeing Josh Pinckney’s face above the tree, his hand waving, his hair flopping in the wind as if he was the one who had done this to her.

Her throat felt lined with cotton. She coughed and dug at the stinger stuck in her skin. Her hand was so swollen it no longer looked like her own.

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