Untethered (Katie Hayoz) by Katie Hayoz

Author:Katie Hayoz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2013-04-02T16:00:00+00:00

1:00 a.m. My mind is on overdrive. I can’t sleep. I slip my hoodie over my pajamas and pad downstairs to the backyard. I lie on the grass. It’s cool, but soft as velvet. The air smells like fall. The sky is clear, and I can make out the Big Dipper among the stars. I can never remember the other constellations.

I rip a handful of grass out of the ground and let it fall back down like confetti. I think about the fight with Cassie today. She thinks she’s better than me now that she’s so good looking. Now that Kevin’s interested in her. Why stick with someone like me?

I roll over onto my stomach. The grass is still green enough to smell tangy. I breathe in its scent and feel like crying, but my eyes stay dry.

All of a sudden I hear the faint squeak of a screen door. Crap! It’s Cassie. I plaster myself to the ground. Don’t see me, don’t see me. Her head bobs around above the hedge, then suddenly nothing. She must be settling down on the lawn.

Just seeing her perfect head for those few seconds gets me ticked off again. Anger comes off of me in waves. I yank at the grass and take deep breaths and wait for Cassie to go back inside.

But she doesn’t go in. She must have seen me because she says, “I was supposed to go out with Kevin tonight.” Her voice is just loud enough for me to hear her through the hedge.

The anger is practically strangling me now. I pull and pull at the grass. I’ve already pulled enough to feed a small cow. “Oh?” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “But you didn’t?”

“Well ... you don’t want me to, do you?”

“And that’s why you didn’t go out with him tonight?”

She’s quiet a minute, then she says, “No. I had to stay with my mom. Dad’s working and she ... I couldn’t leave her alone.”

My anger melts. Her mom’s been drunk and pulled this on her before. Several times. Passing out. Crying fits. Suicide threats. That kind of stuff. I move to get up. To reach across the hedge and give Cassie a hug. Because I always have. I always do. Because I’m her friend and I love her. Despite it all.

But a little voice in the back of my head stops me.

Okay, let’s get this straight. Cassie turns into a beauty queen and no longer spends Saturday nights with you. She embarrasses you to no end in front of your lunch table, then gets ticked when you get upset about it. She kisses and decides to date the one boy she knows you are completely in love with. And you want to be her friend?

Well. When you put it that way.

I hear a bit of movement and then Cassie’s standing behind the hedge, her arms crossed over her chest. “I want us to be friends, Sylvie. You’re ... like a sister.”

A pain sharp as a razor blade pierces my chest.

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