Karma for Beginners by Jessica Blank

Author:Jessica Blank
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction - Young Adult
Publisher: Disney Publishing Worldwide
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

. . .

The universe is a secret.

“Come on,” Colin says, “let’s get out of here,” and grabs my hand. Thank god.

“Where are we going?” It feels so good to just let him decide.

“I dunno.” He grins. “On a walk.”

We stay off the main paths so no one will see us, tracing trails to who knows where. We could technically get lost, but I’m not scared. When we pass the First Aid trailer I see lights behind the gauzy curtains. I don’t think Jayita’d get me in trouble, but just in case I drop Colin’s hand until we’re past.

Finally we wind our way through the woods till you can’t see buildings, backs of trailers or the open air of parking lots. Just gray branches, naked like nerves, crosshatching till they’re thick enough to shade out the sky, and I know their edges and angles will keep us safe from the world past the woods. I stop walking and turn to Colin. He stops and turns to me. And then my back is against one of those trees, bark scratchy and hard through my sweater, and he’s pressed up against the front of me, warm and human and alive.

Every day that week it’s like that. Lost and found, cold and warm, risky and safe.

It’s the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.

I’m at the Amrit, waiting to go meet Colin at the lot. The sound track is this Yaz tape he lent me, “Upstairs at Eric’s,” which, in the first fifteen minutes, is giving Green Tea Experience a run for its money. This song OnlyYou is playing, so beautiful and perfect it’s making my eyes start to water, and then Avinashi walks through the Amrit door. Ugh. The last thing I want is Avinashi to interrupt this song, and the last last thing I want is for her to see me tearing up. Her rust-colored turtleneck is pilly, braids brittle at the ends like paintbrushes where she’s been sucking on them. I watch from the corners of my eyes as she moves through the line, picking things out and putting them back, finally settling on a yogurt. Then she sees me.

Crap.

“Hey.” She comes over, big empty tray holding one little tiny yogurt cup.

I don’t look at her or talk, just try my best to stay inside the song. All I needed was the love you gave, all I needed for another day.

“Hey,” she says again, almost yelling. The cashier looks up. I press PAUSE and pull my headphones off.

It’s funny. Two months ago Avinashi looked about my age. Now, suddenly, with me in my striped leotard and lipstick, her in spit-soaked braids, it’s like I’m the teenager and she’s the kid. It’s crazy how fast you can cross that line, a million invisible changes adding up till you just tip over the edge into a whole different category. In school I used to see it with guys, their familiar soft high voices suddenly shifting down, turning them overnight into strange, large, clumsy creatures more like my mom’s boyfriends than like me.

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