Dark Rooms Read Online Free PDF

her without the dulling amber tint.
    â€œWhat do you say?” she said.
    â€œI’d like to go. I would. It’s just, today’s a little tough.”
    â€œWhat about tomorrow then?”
    â€œYeah, tomorrow’s no good either.”
    â€œOh really? And why’s that?”
    â€œWell, see, because—”
    We talked in this way for a while, and then suddenly we weren’t talking anymore. I don’t know who turned away from whom, but I do know I didn’t care.
    That moment marked my official break from Jamie, Maddie, and Ruben, after which I was pretty much on my own. But then, apart from Nica, I’d always been on my own as far as that crowd went. I had friends who weren’t Nica’s, of course. A group of girls I talked to after class, met up with on weekends, took my yearbook picture with.Margret, Lydie, and Francine. But the sad truth was, the connection between them and me wasn’t real. I hung out with them because I had to hang out with someone and, on the surface, we had things in common—quiet natures, serious about school, neither popular nor unpopular. (“Wow,” Maddie once said when she walked in on us sprawled out on the family room floor, doing our homework, “it, like, boggles the mind how nondescript you all are.” She was wasted at the time. Stoned, too, I think. Still, though.) Basically it was a relationship of convenience. We offered each other warmth and comfort, the protection of safety in numbers. Law of the jungle: stay part of a pack and you’re more likely to live to see another day.
    Sometimes there’d be a house party that was in the vicinity of local, a party Nica, Jamie, Maddie, and Ruben would regard as hopeless if they bothered regarding it at all, and Margret, Lydie, Francine, and I would go together. But as often as not I’d leave early, bored after a couple hours of wandering in and out of other people’s rooms, looking at the photos on mantels, the books on shelves, pretending not to notice the uncool debauchery going on around me. I’d either call my dad, ask him to pick me up, or, when I was old enough to have my license, simply drive off. Occasionally my cell would ring later with questions about where I’d disappeared to. Mostly not, though. Even at a second-rate gathering, my presence—or lack of—didn’t really register. I was included. I just wasn’t necessary.
    After I came back to school, Margret, Lydie, and Francine made an effort to be supportive too. Let me know they were there for me. The thing is, I didn’t want them there for me. I wanted them away from me. They got the message pretty quick. There’d be the odd hurt or wondering look cast in my direction. But mostly they respected my wish for space and kept their distance.
    And there were other people, too, people I didn’t know except to nod hello to in the hall, and they’d come up to me out of goodwill or kindness or curiosity, and that was fine. Usually they’d try to start aconversation, but their words would quickly turn into blah blah blah, and I’d lose the thread, stare into space until they’d get uncomfortable and leave. Soon no one came up to me and that was also fine.
    One new person, however, did enter my life during this period: Dr. Karnani, the psychiatrist I’d asked my parents to find. Asked because I thought I was having a nervous breakdown, and if I wasn’t, I could be, should be. An anxiety disorder of some sort was, I figured, my best bet for getting shipped off to a mental institution. Not a One - Flew - Over - the - Cuckoo’s - Nest nuthouse-type deal, state-run for hardcore crazies—I didn’t want that, no straitjackets or horse tranquilizers for me—but something low-key, gentle. A sanatorium maybe, the kind of place that catered to people with quote sensitive natures unquote who needed quote rest unquote. I’d sleep in a room with white