Cuts Like a Knife by Darlene Ryan

Author:Darlene Ryan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV039160, book
ISBN: 9781459801226
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2012-04-01T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

“Your friend Mac gave it to me. I guess she found it in some old things that had belonged to her grandmother. She knew how much I like bluesmen like Baldry, so she asked if I wanted it. It didn’t mean anything to her.”

I was glad to hand the album back to him, because my hands were shaking so badly it would have ended up on the parking lot pavement in another minute.

“I, uh, I gotta go,” I said.

“Good night, Daniel,” he said. “See you Monday.”

I walked away from him across the parking lot in long strides and then blindly down the street until I was out of sight of the school. Then I stopped and sat on the curb.

I couldn’t breathe, and every part of me was shaking—my hands, my arms, my legs. My teeth would have been banging together if I hadn’t been biting on my tongue so hard I could taste blood.

Mac had gotten that album from her grandmother. She had a whole collection of them, old stuff like Long John Baldry. She liked the pops and hisses and scratches those old records made. Maybe because she’d listened to so many of them with her grandmother.

But that Baldry album was her treasure. Mac’s grandmother was a huge fan. The album had been hers, and I knew that the liner inside had Long John Baldry’s signature. Mac would never give that away.

It meant nothing to her? No way. It meant everything.

I pulled both hands back through my hair. I knew Mac liked Mr. Hanson, even though she said all teachers were lame. Giving him the album was like giving Ren her earrings and me…well, herself. She was going to run again because of Gavin and because her grandmother’s house was going to get torn down. Except I was starting to think that this time she wasn’t going to come back.

I pulled out my phone and punched in Mac’s number, and the whole time all I was saying in my head was, “Pleaseanswer, pleaseanswer, please-answer,” and she didn’t.

And I didn’t know what to say, what message to leave on her voice mail. Please don’t run away again because I love you? I’d already said “I love you” to Mac, and I’d noticed that she hadn’t said it back.

I don’t know how long I was there sitting on the edge of the curb, shaking. Finally I decided I should move or someone was going to see me and think I was stoned or something and call the cops.

So I got up and started walking again, and I guess my feet were on some kind of autopilot, because I was almost home before I noticed which direction I was going in.

I let myself in the back door and stood in the darkness in the kitchen for a minute, listening, trying to guess where my mother was. My dad was on a business trip to Los Angeles. While I was standing there, Mom came into the room, saw me standing there and gave a little shriek.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.