Glory O'Brien's History of the Future by King A. S

Author:King, A. S. [King, A. S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult, Fantasy, Contemporary, Science Fiction, feminism
Amazon: B00I828860
Goodreads: 17453303
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2014-10-14T07:00:00+00:00

BOOK THREE

The road to nowhere

The train is yours. You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to. You don’t have to pick up any passengers or cargo. You can go it alone. Sometimes there will be tunnels. Sometimes there will be baking sunlight. It all depends on where you steer.

Shit, Cupcake

Dad looked scared of what I was going to say next. I didn’t blame him. I was talking a mile a minute and must have said “Darla” six times. It wasn’t fair. But I needed to know.

So I slowed down.

“Why did Darla say she was a pornographer?” I asked.

“Shit, Cupcake. Where are you reading this stuff?”

“I was meant to read it. She wrote it for me. But she didn’t tell me details. So you have to tell me.”

He sighed and sat down at the kitchen table. “She took a job at that photo lab at the mall because she wanted access to a color processor. The owner worked out a deal with her, you know? She printed what orders were given to her. Some was that kind of stuff, I guess. It wasn’t good for her.”

It wasn’t good for her. Oh well.

“Wilson used to take these calendar shots,” he added. “Not like the stuff you see now.”

“Ew. Mr. Wilson was a pornographer?”

“Can we stop using that word?”

“Okay,” I said. “Mr. Wilson took naked pictures of people? Is that better?”

He looked pained.

“Did he take the ones of Jasmine Blue?”

“How do I know?”

“Oh.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some kind of pervert.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. For all my crying that day, I was still mad at him for never talking about it. Maybe he thought I was over it too, like Ellie did. Maybe he kept the pictures Jasmine gave him because it was nice to be wanted. Because it is, right? Nice to be wanted?

“What?” he asked.

“You weren’t even a little bit flattered that Jasmine wanted you to be—you know.”

“No.”

“So why’d you keep the pictures?”

“Look,” he said. “Your mother and I were soul mates. Monogamous. Not like it’s any of your business, but I never slept with anyone in my life except your mother. Not before, not since.”

“Huh,” I said. And then I felt sad, because it seemed too long for Dad to be without—um—sex. I mean, Darla was dead thirteen years.

But I understood. When someone you love chooses to go that way, a large part of you dies along with them. I don’t know how else to explain it. I was four and I understood it. I was now seventeen and I understood it.

They take you with them.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. I just—I don’t want you to think the wrong thing about us, either.”

“So what’s with the tooth?” I asked.

He looked puzzled and then he smiled. “Is that still there? Wow. I forgot all about it.”

“Still there.”

“Number forty-six,” he said, pointing to his jaw where number forty-six usually resides in the human mouth. “She had to get it pulled,” he said.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.