Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff

Author:Kyle Lukoff [Lukoff, Kyle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2021-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

ten

The next morning I’m groggy. No dreams, luckily. Or maybe it’s not luck, maybe Uncle Roderick knows that I’m going to find out what’s going on, why he hasn’t left yet, and so he doesn’t need to tap into my subconscious to give me messages. I yawn through breakfast and then hop on my bike.

I haven’t ridden into town all summer. There’s not much to do there besides go to the library, and I haven’t been in the mood for new books. But that’s where I’m going to find some information.

It’s a long ride. Our driveway is a gravel road a mile long, thick with trees on all sides. The street we officially live off, Sullivan Road, is hard-packed dirt. I wonder what it’s like to have neighbors.

Every pump of my legs on the pedals brings me that much farther away from my house. My breath comes fast, my heart pounds. From exertion instead of fear, for a change. I haven’t been this far from home since that day at Moira’s, and since then I’ve been outside, avoiding my house, or inside and having bad dreams and dealing with them. Breathing hard, pedaling fast, trees blurring past me, I’m more relaxed than I have been in a long time. I’ve never had the urge to get away from something before, and never understood how much relief it could bring.

The book Mom brought home pops into my mind. I like the idea that there are stages of grief you can move through, in a nice and orderly way that ends with acceptance. I also wonder if this whole ghost thing is a kind of bargaining. Like, Uncle Roderick making some bargain with the universe, or with the afterlife. He’s allowed to stay a little longer because . . . well, I don’t know why yet. That’s what I have to find out.

Or maybe I’m bargaining. Maybe I’m keeping him here, somehow, because I don’t want to let him go. If I was really at acceptance, then he’d be able to rest in peace.

But, no. It can’t be my fault that part of him is still here. He has to know that I just want him to be okay, and if he can’t be okay and alive, I want him to be okay with being dead. Even if it means leaving us behind, forever.

I’ll figure it out. Half an hour of riding and I’m at the library. I push open the doors and inhale deeply as the air-conditioning washes over me. I hadn’t noticed how hot I was until now, but my faded black T-shirt is sticking to my chest, and my forehead is damp with sweat. Mrs. Goldman, the librarian, waves at me as I come in, and I wave back before going over to the computer. I come here all the time during the school year, sometimes on my own, sometimes with my mom or my uncle. Mrs. Goldman moved here from New York City too, so they would chat about that a lot.

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