Shadowed summer by Saundra Mitchell

Author:Saundra Mitchell [Saundra Mitchell]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Jeunesse
ISBN: 9780385735711
Published: 2009-02-10T08:00:00+00:00

Watching day grow brighter through my windows, I’d just gotten tired enough to drift off when the phone rang. I turned over and covered my head with a pillow to ignore it. The shrill didn’t stop, though. I swore that it rang for five whole minutes before I finally answered.

Silence filled the line for a moment, then a voice asked, “Iris?”

I frowned. “Yeah?”

“This is Ben,” he said, concern coming through. “Did I wake you up?”

A quick look at the clock told me it was barely eight. Decent people never called before noon unless somebody’d died or had a baby. Irritated, I rolled over. “No. What do you want?”

“Just, you know, to say I’m sorry I didn’t stay to help clean up.”

“It was one glass.”

“I know, but still.” His voice hedged, cut with a hesitation that made me nervous.

“All I needed was for you to walk Collette home. It’s fine.”

“My daddy’s got a bunch of boxes from high school in the attic, if you want to come look through them,” Ben said. “You and Collette, I mean.”

It made me mad, the way he jumped up to be my friend when Collette didn’t want anything to do with him. “Nope. I’m done with Elijah.”

“What? Why?”

Sunlight suddenly streaked through the window, the morning rise finally getting past the trees. I watched dust dance on the light and stirred my fingers through it to make it spin. “He’s mean.”

Ben snorted. “I’d be mean, too, if I couldn’t rest.”

“Then I’m not coming to look for you if you disappear, either.”

“Who asked you to?”

“Good thing you didn’t.”

Being done with Elijah meant being done with Ben, too, and I’d have to pull him off like a Band-Aid, quick and sharp, no matter how funny I thought he was. “I’ve got chores to do.”

“Sorry I called,” Ben mumbled, then hung up.

I listened to the line buzz for a minute. The quiet filled my ears, and the cut on my cheek throbbed in time with the ache starting behind my eyes. Finally, I hung up, too.

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.