Alone Read Online Free PDF Page B

That was a bonus.
    Hence the poster on his wall. He hadn’t even noticed it in months, really, but right now, it was the most obvious object for him to use as a focal point.
    But where should he concentrate his attention?
    He decided on Gene’s tongue rather than Paul’s star, just because Paul was such a favorite of the ladies, which made him way less cool in Ed’s eyes.
    So here he was in his room, with nothing to grab onto between his bed and Gene’s tongue. Now all he had to do was stand up, visualize his legs moving, and take a leap of faith.
    This was going to be easy. He tried a mental practice run before he stood up. Pictured his legs, skinnier now than they used to be but with a good amount of muscle built up from the physical therapy. On his feet were thick white socks and his oldest, comfiest pair of blue Chuck Taylor high-tops. He saw them stand and, without hesitation, walk across the room. Step after step, they covered the eight feet in no time flat. At first his imaginary movie looked kind of jerky, like it was shot from a flip book. After he tried it a few more times, the playback appeared in brightly saturated Technicolor. A little more practice and it took on the hiccupping cast of streaming video; an ounce more concentration and Ed was watching, in the amphitheater of his mind, the clear, definitive, ultimate-edition, director’s-cut DVD of himself walking across the room, complete with alternate sound track and commentary. He was truly Xbox ready.
    He stood, rewound the mental movie to the starting-point, zeroed in on Gene’s tongue, and took a leap of faith.
    He saw the tongue; he felt his legs move; he took a step and. . .
    Flopped like a flounder on the floor.
    For a moment he was totally stunned. He actually thought he had made it across the room and was nose to nose with Ace Frehley. Slowly he realized he was actually face-to-face with a particularly rank patch of carpet.
    First he became aware of a burning ache across his face. Then he felt a much more painful ache in his heart. He hadn’t realized how much he had bought into Lydia’s plan. He’d thought he prepared himself for failure, but he was devastated.
    Five-step plan, my ass, he thought, wondering if his nose was broken. This wasn’t as easy as it had sounded. Possibly Lydia was not only a bitch, she was a lunatic as well, all wrapped up in the body of Anna Kournikova.
    He hadn’t made it across the room. He didn’t know if he ever would. At that moment he only knew one thing.
    If he ever met Gene Simmons, he was going to kick his glam-rocking, tongue-wagging, makeup-wearing ass.

Goose Egg

    GAIA FLOPPED ONTO THE COUCH and tried to picture how the room would look with her T-shirts, jeans, computer, and discs strewn about it. About the same as the rest of her life: a mess. She sighed, listening to Tatiana storming around the adjoining room, and threw her feet loudly onto the coffee table.
    She understood enough Russian and knew she ought to be outraged at the torrent of insults flooding from her roommate’s mouth, but she just couldn’t muster up the anger. After a moment it got quiet, and she heard Tatiana typing so hard, it was like she was beating up her computer’s keyboard. Was she writing to Ed?
    Ed. Gaia sank lower on the couch as she felt her guts melt, against her will, at the thought of the one peaceful, happy night she could remember ever having. The sex itself had been nice, but sort of weird. The whole. . . physics of the act was bizarre, she had to admit. It would take some getting used to, though parts of it were already pretty excellent.
    But getting used to it just wasn’t in the cards. She and Ed had had one night—just the one—and if she cared about him at all, she had to cut him off cold. Despite her feelings for him—despite the total unraveling of every inch of resolve, and despite her total craving—now that she realized the depth of her