Echo Bridge Read Online Free PDF

guileless eyes, the short blond hair scraped back from her face with a headband. We were only two years apart but she seemed so young. I couldn’t let Hugh hurt her.
    “Um, look,” I said. “I know Hugh pretty well, and he’s not, like, the best boyfriend candidate.”
    Molly’s whole demeanor changed. “No offense, Courtney, but I already have an older sister.” She rolled her eyes. “We’ve already had this talk. He’s older, he’s aggressive, blah blah blah. He’s nice to me. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t go out with him.”
    “Molly, I’m just trying to look out for you. If Hugh ever scares you or something—”
    “Scares me?” Molly snorted. “God, I’m not a child!”
    We had reached the doors to the auditorium, and paused. Mr. Gillison would already be inside, and maybe some of the rest of the cast. The conversation made me feel exhausted and trapped. I had gotten myself into this without knowing how to get out. I was also angry, suddenly and surprisingly furious, for the first time since the thing with Hugh. I knew Molly was the wrong target, but it felt so good to get mad, I couldn’t help it.
    “Well, actually, fifteen
is
technically a child,” I snapped, as if this weren’t also true of my own age, seventeen. “But I’m not treating you like one. I’m telling you that Hugh Marsden can, and probably will, hurt you. And I don’t mean metaphorically or emotionally. It’s happened before. I think you deserve better, but if you don’t—”
    “God! Senior girls hate it when their guy friends go for underclassmen. Everyone knows that. I probably will too someday. But you’re with Ted Parker. I know Hugh is his friend, but you’re not dating both of them, and this is really none of your business.” Molly sneered a little, hitched her bags higher on her shoulders, and pushed through the auditorium doors. I leaned one cheek against the cold metal door and caught my breath. I should have known better. I barely knew Molly, and there was probably some hostile history I wasn’t even aware of between my girlfriends and hers. Now she thought I was just another senior bitch.
    * * *
    The theater teacher, Mr. Gillison, wanted my Abigail sex-crazed. “Her desire for John Proctor is so strong, she doesn’t care whom she hurts. Remember, before the play even begins, she’s willing to kill his wife with witchcraft. Abigail’s lust drives all the action.” He’d said this to me at the very beginning of the school year, and I’d thought that even if I’d had stiffer competition for the starring role, Mr. G would have cast me anyway, because he would have been too nervous to risk talking like this to a student he didn’t know as well as he knew me. He was basically saying, “Play Abigail horny as hell.”
    Mr. G was in some ways my mentor. I’d taken both his Theater I and II classes, of course, and been in almost all the productions he’d directed. He’d even rewritten a small part in the musical the previous spring so that I could have a speaking part but not have to sing. Of course, “mentor” implies that I aspired to his professional position, but I wanted to go far beyond it. While I could see that teaching at Belknap was probably a decent job, the idea of ending up back in high school as an adult was horrifying.
    When Mr. G had first talked to me about Abigail’s portrayal, I’d been excited. I liked the idea of female sexuality being the engine in a plot that revolved around repressive Puritans, and I loved the idea of playing a bunny boiler like the leads in
Play Misty for Me
and
Fatal Attraction
. But the night of Melissa’s party had changed that, along with everything else.
    “You’re playing Abigail in a way that makes her seem very fearful,” Mr. G told me that afternoon. “And yes, she is afraid. She’s an orphan, she’s consorted with a married man, and her uncle’s standing in the community is weak. She could easily be a victim of the various rules and constraints