Gather the Bones by Andrea Kresge

Author:Andrea Kresge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: date rape, mystery, navajo, psychic, teen pregnancy, colorado
Publisher: Three Moons Press
Published: 2017-06-23T00:00:00+00:00

I stood there looking down at the note trying to ground myself, feeling my feet parked solidly on the floor. My heartbeat was regular, my stomach steady and calm. I didn’t feel sick at all. I must’ve had something like food poisoning. What else would make me get spontaneously sick like that? Was it bad peanut butter? But Christopher ate it too. What was wrong with me? My life had become a series of sickness and fainting. I was famished, so I opened the refrigerator and pulled out the milk. He had three boxes of cereal: Cinnamon Life, Cocoa Puffs and Lucky Charms. The colorful boxes make me chuckle. I choose Life, figuring I’d go with the healthiest option.

I opened the closet near the door. I wasn’t really looking for anything, just snooping, I guess. It was a regular closet: a few jackets, a shelf with a flashlight, a pile of magazines, what looked like a bedroll and some boots on the floor. I pulled out a thick red plaid jacket, contemplated it for a moment and put it on. It was chilly inside the trailer. I took my bowl of cereal and walked outside. Clouds were moving swiftly across the sky, sending large shadows across the ground, like transparent beasts sliding slowly through the pines. I took a deep breath and sensed a mixture of pine pitch and wood smoke on the air. The sun warmed me when it peeked through the clouds, but it was a tease, only lingering for a moment. There was an airplane in the sky, groaning out that subtle atmospheric roar that we’ve all become so accustomed to. It was a comforting sound.

I walked around Christopher’s small plot of land. The mesa was high, but flat. The trees were barely trees by my definition. They were somewhere between bush and tree, not growing that much higher than my head. I sensed that something more than just friendly could happen with Christopher and it made me destructively long for Max. Maybe I was afraid of moving on. Could that be? Or did I feel some obligation to him? I don’t really know why I longed for him then. Maybe it was more like a habit. Sometimes you know what’s best for you, but making the change is the scariest part. It’s that time between the decision and the outcome that stings: that in-between time when you’ve acknowledged the truth, but haven’t fully actualized the changes.

I could have called him earlier to see if he was ok, but I didn’t. Finally I couldn’t resist anymore. I called him collect from Christopher’s orange rotary dial phone. I knew his mother Nora might answer, and she did, but miraculously she didn’t hang up on me. Instead, she accepted the call and cordially passed the phone on to Max. She must have known something. Maybe they had worked it out.

“How come your mom let you talk to me?” I asked immediately.

“We had a fight and I told her I’m in love with you.

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