Raina's Story by Lurlene McDaniel

Author:Lurlene McDaniel [McDaniel, Lurlene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-51308-3
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2014-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

Kathleen wished she’d never come to the party with Carson. She had wanted to spend New Year’s Eve with him alone, but he’d insisted that they hit a huge party at a friend’s beach house. The place was crawling with kids from Bryce Academy, and except for Carson, she didn’t know a soul. Nor did she want to. Most of the kids were either drunk or well on the way to becoming drunk. Even Carson was drinking beer and feeling little pain. “Are you sure you don’t want a beer?” he asked. “Half a beer?”

“I’m the only sober one here, Carson.”

“All the more reason.”

“No,” she said.

He put his arm around her. “You’re a girl of principle, Kathleen.” He raised his beer can to toast her.

Although he didn’t sound as if he was making fun of her, she wasn’t sure. “I just don’t like the taste of the stuff.”

“Never apologize for being a person of principle. Too few of you left in the world.” He kissed her.

She tasted the yeasty coolness of alcohol from his tongue and pulled away. “How long are we staying?”

“Aw, come on, honey. It’s a party. I don’t want to leave until after midnight.” He nuzzled her neck. “And I’m going to want to kiss you when that ball drops in Times Square.”

She wished she hadn’t told him already that her mother had extended her curfew until one a.m. Mary Ellen was assuming that Kathleen and Carson would be at his place, but they weren’t, and Kathleen was feeling deceitful, something Carson wouldn’t grasp even if she’d told him.

“Hey, there’s my buddy, Todd.” Carson gestured toward a boy in a blue sweater with his arm around a cute girl in a pink sweater.

“They look adorable.” Kathleen’s stab at sarcasm seemed lost on Carson. “Listen, I need to use the bathroom,” she told him. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

There was a line at the bathroom door, so Kathleen peeled off and headed outside. She didn’t have to use the toilet; she’d only said it so that she could think more clearly. Chilly night air slapped her in the face and she took a deep breath. She heard waves sloshing ashore, driven by a light wind. She squinted at the outlines of mounds atop the sand and realized they were couples stretched out on blankets and covered with more blankets.

Kathleen glanced at her cell phone inside the tiny purse on her shoulder, almost willing her mother to call. However, Mary Ellen rarely called these days because since her surgery, she was feeling much better. She had joined an MS support group and even went bowling once a week! The group met regularly, ate out at restaurants, did holiday projects together. In fact, it seemed to Kathleen that her mother had more of a social life than she did. Carson was Kathleen’s main diversion, and then only when they both had time between school and her work as a Pink Angel.

Kathleen sighed, zipped her purse and was about to return to the smoke and noise inside the house when she overheard two girls talking near her on the porch.

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.