Kiss Me Deadly: 13 Tales of Paranormal Love by Trisha Telep

Author:Trisha Telep [Telep, Trisha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780762439492
Google: WjaS9LcTpHcC
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
Published: 2010-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

7. Epilogue—January

Jo never said a word, and no one ever asked her beyond a cursory question how Ash House had burned. Ani came and sat with her in the ER and asked if Jo could forgive her for telling her father her best friend was fixing to do something stupid.

Ani’s grandmother patted her bandaged hand when she came by to return the necklace. “You hold on to that, child. You’re going to need it more than I ever did.”

Jo asked why, and Ani’s grandmother sighed, and lit one of her rancid cigarettes. “You think just everyone goes around attracting the dead, honey? Ain’t so. You’ve got an eye that sees into that shadow place, and unless you want to be deviled all your days—you keep that thing on.”

They went back to school, where nobody questioned that Jo had cut her hand on a broken glass in her own home.

Drew Powell came up to her their second week back. “You have my lighter,” he said.

“Not anymore,” Jo said. “Trust me, it went to a good cause.”

He reached out and lifted the necklace from her clavicle with his finger. Jo realized this was the first time she and Drew had ever touched. “Interesting,” he said. Jo shrugged.

“It’s broken. The clasp.” She twisted the chain to show where she’d affixed the two ends with a paper clip.

“I could fix it for you,” Drew said. “And maybe you can tell me why my mom had a nervous breakdown the day after Christmas, and told me that her friend from high school forgave her for not getting her out of the river.”

“I couldn’t tell you,” Jo said. She wanted to pull away, but Drew’s eyes caught her, while he tilted his head.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Drew,” she said. “Some things are just better off staying buried.”

He considered for a second. “You want a ride home?”

Jo smiled. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

“Come on, then,” Drew said. He smiled back at her. Jo realized this was the first time she’d seen Drew Powell smile. His smile was crooked and half-mast, like a bend in a country road. Nothing like a knife.

January thaw turned the roads to mud while Drew took the turns too fast, throwing up a fantail of earth and ice. Birds chittered from the bare trees, and on Route 7, the Acushket burbled under the ice, whispering in the language of black water. Jo reached over, turned up the radio, and drowned them out.

Wash away my troubles, wash away my pain, with the rain in Shambala....

Drew didn’t slow down when they passed the bridge and the burned relic of Ash House, and Jo was glad. She nodded when Drew offered her a cigarette, and rolled down the window so she could put her hand out and feel the wind.

The trees would get green and the river ice would melt, and she and Ani would apply to all the same colleges and probably end up going to different ones. But not too far away. Spring would come.

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