Breaking Point Read Online Free PDF Page B

Thoughts like this led me nowhere, of course, and only made it harder to be close to him. He was both the cause of my pain and the cure.
    “So how are you?” He cleared his throat. “Really,” he added.
    I felt my skin stretch tight at his words, like all the anger and fear was expanding. It was pressing at my lungs, making it hard to breathe. And he must have felt it, too, because he pushed off the wall and stared a hole through his boots.
    “Hungry,” I said. “What do you think it’ll be tonight?”
    A beat passed. Then another.
    “Pizza,” he said finally, and I breathed out a sigh of relief that he’d changed the subject. “Maybe spaghetti. And ice cream for dessert.” The corner of his mouth quirked up.
    “Sounds delicious,” I said. Canned ham and beans were more likely, but sometimes it was easier to pretend.
    *   *   *
    “WHO wants ice cream sundaes?”
    I buried my head under the pillow. Was she seriously going to pretend that we had ice cream, when we didn’t even have a freezer?
    “Too bad. I guess I’ll have to eat it all myself.”
    I groaned. The blank tablet of paper lay beside me, untouched. How many letters had I written to Chase in the last six months? Twenty? Thirty? And not one response. Not to say he’d arrived in Chicago and started training. Not to say he missed me.
    He’d promised he’d write, and I’d believed him.
    I shouldn’t have.
    I ignored my grumbling stomach as long as I could, but facing her was inevitable. I pushed off my bed and dragged myself into the kitchen.
    She sat at the table, hands folded neatly behind a heaping bowl of instant mashed potatoes, the powdered kind that came out of a blue box. There were two spoons, one directly before her, the other in front of my seat. She’d fashioned some kind of triangle-shaped sailor hat from a brown paper bag and placed it regally on her head.
    “You have got to be kidding me,” I said.
    “Oh, did you want some ice cream? I’m not sure there’s enough to share,” she taunted.
    Just to humor her, I sat. I couldn’t look her in the face though; the hat was too ridiculous.
    She lifted her spoon, filling it with a huge dollop of mashed potatoes, and stuck it in her mouth, making all sorts of satisfied noises.
    I smiled.
    After a moment I picked up my spoon. Took a bite.
    “Tell me that’s not the best ice cream you’ve ever had,” she said.
    “It’s not the best ice cream I’ve ever had,” I said, trying hard to swallow without giggling.
    A look of disbelief spread across her face. Then she slung a spoonful of mashed potatoes across the table, and splattered them all across my shirt.
    *   *   *
    “HEY.”
    I jolted up straight in my chair as Sean snapped his fingers in my face. My chest still ached with the memory. If I had known my mother would be dead three months later, I never would have fought with her over something stupid, or yelled at her when she’d gotten a citation. I would have packed our stuff and we would have run, and we’d both be at the safe house now.
    I tried to hold on to the sound of her laughter, but it blended with the others down the hall. Cara’s soprano rose above the rest. They were probably playing poker again, competing for something someone had picked up in town. Candy maybe, or cigarettes. I cringed. They might as well invite the whole base over with all the noise they were making.
    Billy pushed away from the computer, shoving back his hair absently. I’d zoned out while we were scanning the mainframe for more information on girls’ reformatories in Chicago. There wasn’t much for me to do while Billy hacked into the server and Sean scanned the lists.
    “Go to bed,” Sean told me, squinting at the screen.
    “I’m fine,” I said, yawning. “And anyway, you’re not the boss of me anymore.”
    He tossed me a pointed look over his shoulder. “Was I ever the boss of you?” When I grinned, he said, “That’s what I thought. Go away, you’re making me