The Girl On The Half Shell by Susan Ward

Author:Susan Ward [Ward, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: coming of age, New Adult & College, contemporary
Publisher: Susan Ward
Published: 2014-05-13T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Something moves behind me and there is a whispering voice in the darkness.

“You talk in your sleep. Do you know that?”

I ease away from Alan and gaze up at him, blinking. There is enough light in the room that I can see the perfect lines of his face, and I frantically search his eyes, desperately trying to read them. But they are hooded and probing.

How long has he been watching me? It’s the middle of the night, his posture in bed tells me he’s been sitting up for quite a while, and he’s been drinking.

I scoot away from him, dragging the sheets to cover me. “Why are you sitting in the dark getting loaded?”

He takes a long drag of his cigarette. “You’ve been crying and mumbling for hours. It was the crying that woke me up.”

I push the hair from my face. “I’m sorry.”

“Why do you have nightmares? You have them almost every time you sleep,” he says, and his eyes are suddenly scrutinizing mine.

“Alan…I…I just have nightmares. It’s no big deal. OK?”

“The things you mumble in your sleep. Is that why you burn yourself?” he breathes, his eyes widening.

How did we get to talking about this again? I struggle to collect the right words to get out of this.

“I don’t do it anymore. I told you that. I don’t want to talk about it.”

He ignores my words in that completely Alan way. “What’s up between you and your old man? There is definitely a strange vibe between the two of you.”

“There is nothing. What does it matter? It’s two a.m.”

“It’s so strange how you talk to each other.” He shakes his head. “I’ve been sitting here trying to figure that one out. It’s like you’re both afraid to speak, which is completely strange since I find it usually impossible to shut Jack up.”

“God, do you have any idea how irritating you can be? Why do you want to dig around in my shit? Don’t you have more than enough of your own shit to deal with?”

Alan shrugs. “Yours is more fun.”

I sigh. “Really. Is that why I’m here—so you can amuse yourself psychoanalyzing me?”

“You’re here because I have three weeks to kill before I go back on the road. I’m between girls. You didn’t seem to have anything better to do. And I thought you’d do what I tell you and not be too much of a pain in the ass.”

He says it succinctly, like he’s reading a grocery list. I hit him, but Alan only laughs and rakes the tumbling hair from his face. “I was wrong about the pain in the ass part,” he teases, his eyes dancing with humor.

I stare at him, trapped in a storm of warring emotions, and then I burst out laughing.

Alan smiles. “I like you. That’s why you’re here.”

I roll my eyes. “I haven’t made up my mind about you just yet.”

His eyes soften. “Oh yes you have, Chrissie. You never know what you want, but you always know how you feel.

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