The Year of the Beasts by Cecil Castellucci

Author:Cecil Castellucci [Castellucci, Cecil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Death & Dying, Social Issues, Juvenile Fiction, Dating & Sex
ISBN: 9781596438255
Google: toylvYY4fvkC
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Published: 2012-05-22T22:12:56+00:00

One day, after almost enough kisses from Jasper in the woods, Tessa could tell that Lulu knew that something was up. She came around the house and found Lulu and Celina on the front porch sitting on the porch swing. They looked upset.

“Where were you?” Lulu asked.

“Nowhere,” Tessa responded. She handed them the melted ice cream.

Lulu put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips in an I-know-better way.

“What?” Tessa challenged.

Then Lulu stood up and plucked a pine needle caught in Tessa’s hair. Presented it as evidence.

“I went down to the river,” Tessa said. “I went walking in the woods on the way back. It’s none of your business.”

“We’ve been waiting for forever,” Celina said.

“I hardly thought you noticed,” Tessa said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Celina asked.

Tessa slid a look over at Lulu, and without words, Celina softened. She knew, the way that a good friend clues in, sometimes late, but eventually, that she had been paying too much attention to Lulu.

“We’re late,” Lulu said. “Now the stores will be closed.”

Tessa didn’t care about the stores.

“We can go tomorrow, Lulu.” Celina said.

Lulu was still fingering the pine needle, looking at it with eyes that remembered the stories they used to tell each other about those woods.

Tessa knew that her sister would ask no more questions about it, even if Celina did. After all, didn’t Lulu like to walk by herself in those very woods? Didn’t she like to imagine that she was the only girl alive on the whole planet? Didn’t she, on occasion, sit with her back to a tree and read a book, or do some other thing, like dream, or think. It was quiet in the woods. And day-to-day life was always so noisy: their parents asking all kinds of questions, teachers making demands that facts and numbers be remembered, and friends and social obligations that required immediate attention through IMs, texts, emails, and phone calls. Sometimes, a walk in the woods was the only way to escape.

It was the quiet.

It took Lulu a couple of more days to muster up the courage to do it. But it was as though the fact that Tessa was keeping things from her had made her see things differently. One night, after a day of the silent treatment from Tessa, she took a deep breath and said it aloud.

“I’m sorry,” Lulu said. Putting her hand across the dinner table and squeezing her sister’s hand. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

Immediately Tessa felt lighter. Like the sorriness inside of her had changed its state from a heavy element to a light one. She was not experienced at accepting apologies and was afraid that she would do it clumsily.

“You should be,” Tessa said. As soon as the words came out of her mouth, she knew for sure that she had accepted it wrong.

Lulu left the room and slammed the door.

The apology hadn’t changed anything.

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