Like Gravity by Johnson Julie

Author:Johnson, Julie [Johnson, Julie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, Contemporary, Young Adult
Publisher: Julie Johnson
Published: 2013-08-24T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Narcissistic Asshole

Stepping out onto the porch, my small hand slipped into his larger one immediately. He was there on the steps, just like he’d been every night since the first time we’d met – the night he’d told me the legend of Andromeda.

My eyes sought his, and when they met I was comforted for the first time all day. He was the only thing that made the group home bearable; when he told me stories or simply held my hand and talked to me, I could forget about the older girls and their teasing comments. I could forget about the bad man, the police officers, the hospital, and even about Mommy.

It’s not that I wanted to forget her. I just missed her so much – too much. When he told me stories, though, I could pretend it had never happened. When I left my room, scared after a nightmare, he was always there to make me feel better. On those nights, he’d tell me silly stories, tales to make me giggle or smile, and I wasn’t an orphan anymore; I was back in my princess room, surrounded by brave knights and magical fairies. I was in a world of magic and happy endings, where things like murder and death were impossibilities. Where mommies didn’t get taken away to heaven when their little girls needed them.

“Hi, Brooklyn,” he said, a small smile in his sad eyes.

I didn’t reply, I simply looked up at him. I still wasn’t speaking – not to my foster mother, not to the other kids, not even to the lady who called herself a ‘therapist’ and came twice a week to see me.

I knew they wanted me to. Sometimes, the adults got angry at me – even though there were smiles on their faces, I could see the frustration in their eyes and hear it in their voices when they talked to me. The other kids didn’t get angry – they just got mean.

Except for him.

He never yelled, or teased, or tried to get me to talk. He just let me listen to his stories, hold his hand, and forget. Sometimes we’d just sit in the darkness, staring into the backyard or up at the night sky together.

“Brooklyn, look,” he whispered, pointing into the dark, toward the tall grass at the bottom of the steps.

I looked at him questioningly; I didn’t see anything unusual in the yard.

“Fireflies.”

I turned back and peered into the night, trying to catch a glimpse of them. I’d only seen them once before, at the beginning of the summer. Mommy and I had gone on a picnic at our favorite park one night, and when the sun had started to go down we’d seen hundreds of the glowing bugs flying all around us. Mommy had laughed and said maybe they were really fairies, like Tinkerbell, and if some of their fairy dust fell on us we could fly away too.

Mommy had flown away, after all – but she hadn’t taken me with her.

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