Doc Harrison and the Masks of Galleon by Peter Telep

Author:Peter Telep [Telep, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-09-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

“My mom’s thinking that we should move away,” Julie told me one August night while we were riding skateboards down her driveway. We had just celebrated her thirteenth birthday the week before.

“You can’t move away,” I told her. “That would suck.”

“I know.”

“Why does she want to leave?”

“She’s been crying a lot lately. She says we don’t belong here anymore. I’m not sure what’s going on, but she said we need a change.”

“Maybe she’s just thinking about your father,” I said.

“I’m not sure, but I definitely do not want to go. I don’t want to change schools. That’s the worst.”

I was about to show her one of my coolest tricks when the skateboard shot out from beneath my sneakers and I hit the deck. Hard.

She scraped me off the concrete. I banged my arm, the one I’d already broken.

“Whoa. Are you okay?” she asked.

I brushed off the sand stuck on my elbows. “Yeah.”

“Are you bleeding?”

I rolled my arm to examine it. “No, it just hurts.”

“Were you trying to impress me or something, because you shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

She sighed. “Just be careful.”

“Okay.”

“And hey, that would’ve been a really cool jump if you didn’t fall.”

“Really?”

She smiled. “Hell, yeah.”

I smiled back. “So tell your mom you can’t move away.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Because you’ll be lonely.”

She closed her eyes. “You’re right. I will be…”

That was the first time I imagined my life without Julie.

There’d be no one to talk to after school. No one to make sure I didn’t dress like a loser. Apparently some of the things Grace let me wear were hideous.

So I went home and cried. Dad told me not to worry. Alina was just “going through some issues” and that it’d all be over soon. They wouldn’t be moving. And they didn’t.

Because they couldn’t.

They were Florans on an alien planet, and it was safer for everyone to keep close. I never found out what Alina was going through, but maybe when the drugs finally wear off I can ask her immortal.

I guess it was hard being a single parent and raising the daughter of a murderer. She always put on a happy face, even though it was killing her inside.

The girls are talking to me, and so are Keane and Hedera. Ignoring them, I head over to the makeshift shower coming down through the cracked ceiling. I close my eyes and let the water flow over me…

Maybe we’re wrong about everything.

That wasn’t Solomon disguised as Julie.

It was her. And she helped us. And she’s still okay.

She’s still… normal.

But why did I keep clinging to that thought? Why can’t I just accept the fact that she joined her father, she doesn’t want to be rescued, and she won’t care if I just let her go?

I mean to be honest, I don’t love her anymore, do I?

Maybe I was never really in love, just obsessed with the idea of getting her to love me.

Still… when I think about walking away, it just hurts so much. I can’t turn my back on someone I’ve

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.