Brighter Than the Sun Read Online Free PDF

man, but I suddenly like him a whole lot more.
    Too bad he dies in the most horrible way possible. Too bad he goes to hell.

8
    By the time I realize I’ve been drugged, it’s over and Earl is done with me. He loosens the ties and goes to clean himself up. I must have fought him despite the drugs. He hits me when I fight him, and I’m pretty sure my jaw is broken. Pain tears through me every time I try to move, so I lie still.
    The breaks are just one more way Earl makes sure I don’t run. It’s hard to sneak out of a crawl space with a broken wrist. To run with a broken ankle. Every time I’m almost healed, he breaks something else. Breaks are fine. I can endure the breaks. It’s the other things he does, the things that crush me on the inside, that make me want to die.
    I would have if not for Dutch’s light. I would be dead. I know it. I wish it were real. I wish she were real. She’s getting older and more beautiful with each passing day, and even though she’s a figment of my fucked-up imagination, I love her. To the very depths of my soul.
    Kim rushes in with a bowl of hot water and a rag. It’s our usual routine, and I try to remember what I did before she arrived.
    Oh, yeah. I writhed in agony and bled a lot. Pretty much like now, only without Kim watching over me.
    “I’m glad you’re here,” I say to her, my voice cracking with each syllable.
    She lowers her gaze. Focuses on my wounds. Doesn’t believe me.
    But I’m not lying. I think of a day very much like this one. I’m seven and three-quarters. That three-quarters is very important to me.
    Earl sits beside me on the bed. I pretend to be asleep.
    “What are you?” he asks. He examines a break I had two weeks ago. I was opening a can of SpaghettiOs and dropped it. The kitchen ended up covered in SpaghettiOs and I ended up with a broken wrist.
    He lifts my arm, now completely healed, and turns it over in the light. I feel his confusion. His fascination. He’s been trying to come up with a way to make money off the fact that I heal fast, because he thinks of only two things: sex and money. Mostly sex. And it’s not worth losing me to get a little extra dough. Any attention he brings to me could open a can of worms he’s not ready to eat.
    There’s a knock on the door and he bolts forward to turn off the lamp in my room. The knock sounds again, harder this time.
    A woman calls out. “I know you’re in there.” She coughs and pounds on the door some more. “Earl! I know you’re in there!”
    He recognizes the voice and lets out a long, frustrated sigh. After walking to the front door, he says through it, “What do you want, Kelly?”
    “I have something for you.”
    “Leave it at the door.” Then he mutters, “Crazy bitch.”
    “I heard that. And I can’t just leave it at the door. Open up.” There is a long silence; then she adds, “I’m dying, Earl. Open the door.”
    He opens the door at last, and I can see from my bedroom a redheaded woman. A woman I recognize from somewhere. She has a redheaded girl in one hand and a suitcase in the other. It’s blue.
    “What is this?” he asks.
    She coughs a full two minutes before she can answer. When she does, her voice is gravelly, like she smokes too much. “I’m dying. I don’t have long, and I need you to take Kim.”
    He looks down at the girl, but she is looking at me. Or she seems to be. But my room is dark. Can she even see me? Her eyes are like saucers. She is sick, too. Or maybe she just doesn’t get enough to eat. Either way, she is skinny and her long hair is full of tangles.
    “Why would I take your bastard kid?”
    The woman pushes the girl toward him. “Because she’s yours. She’s your daughter.”
    He snaps to attention. “Bullshit.”
    “She is. Check the birth certificate.” She holds out an envelope.
    “That don’t mean jack, and you know it. You could’ve put the king of England’s name on that thing, and you put mine?”
    I don’t mention to Earl