Bull's Eye Read Online Free PDF

can go home and think about what you want to do with it.”
    â€œGo home?” I say. “You think I should go home?”
    â€œWell, yeah,” she says, looking surprised. “You have to go home sooner or later. And you did what you came to do. You found your dad. And you need to go back to school too. The longer you stay away, the harder it will be to go back. And you have to go back. You need to talk to Sandra. Hang with your friends.”
    All of a sudden I am furious with her. She doesn’t even know me. I only met her a few days ago. Why am I even asking her what I should do? She has no idea what my life is like. As I stand up to leave, she stands with me and says my name very softly. “Emily.”
    â€œWhat?” I growl.
    â€œYour mom needs you.”
    â€œI don’t have a mom,” I say. I sling my pack over my shoulder. “Remember?”
    â€œWe both have mothers,” she replies. “They’re just not who we want them to be.”
    â€œYou got that right,” I mutter as I stomp out of the café. On the way out, the cute barista hands me a slip of paper. I crumple it up and throw it on the ground. Behind me, Tina bends over to pick it up. She stops and says something to the barista—probably apologizing for my rudeness—and I break into a run. I’m halfway down Robson Street in no time, breathing hard and sweating. Tina is nowhere in sight.
    â€œSmooth move, Emily,” I say out loud. I figure there are so many crazies on the street that one more babbling lunatic won’t matter. Maybe I’m more like Donna than I thought. Maybe soon I’ll be hearing voices telling me to steal a jacket from Banana Republic, but for now all I hear are the noises of the city. And my cell phone, which plays the first few notes of James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” Which I don’t, especially when I look at the display and realize it’s the un-mom calling.
    I’m not ready to talk to her, and I am not sure that I ever will be. I put the phone back in my pack. I carry on down Robsonall the way to Denman and then down Denman to the ocean. Along the way I grab a mango gelato and a chocolate cupcake. Nobody flirts with me, the food tastes too sweet and I am beginning to regret throwing away the cute barista’s number. If I stay in Vancouver, I’ll need a friend. Even if I only stay one more night. Maybe I could take him back to the Bull’s Eye with me. Maybe we could just grab a burger somewhere and chat. Like normal people. Except there’s nothing normal about me right now.
    I sit on the grass in front of the Sylvia Hotel. I take the picture of Donna and Sandra out of my pack. I hold the photograph in my hand and stare at where they posed for it. It dawns on me that I am in the picture too—invisible but present, already a force in two women’s lives. Until this moment, my tears have all been for myself—my loss, my pain, my anger. As I stare at Sandra and Donna, I see for the first time the look of confusion on Donna’s face, the expression of love on Sandra’s. I see Donna’s handcaressing her belly—caressing me. And I see Sandra’s arm supporting her sister. Questions whir in my brain like wasps in an empty beer bottle. The hotel isn’t about to give me any answers, nor is the photograph, so I take the little pink blanket out of my pack, ball it up into a pillow, lie down and go to sleep.
    The next thing I know, I hear a voice say, “Is she dead, Mommy?” and I open my eyes to see a tiny girl in a red dress standing over me.
    â€œGet away from there, Amy,” her mother says sharply, as if I’m contagious or something.
    Might as well be dead, I think. I gather up my stuff and trudge back to the Y.

Chapter Eight
    The next day I get on the bus and go home. I can’t think of anything more to do in Vancouver, and I’m running out of money anyway. The woman who sits