Entwine Read Online Free PDF Page B

thick body that had caught her eye in the first place. He was probably too old for her.
    It was a lot to smile about.
    “You’re suggestive for thinking I’d want to come.”
    But it was a lie, of course. She couldn’t not go in for more of whatever this was, especially since she’d been too busy today learning everything to eat more than one sandwich, and she hadn’t had any coffee.
    But she could have had her coffee and all her snacks and meals today, and she’d still find an excuse to go in with him.
    So she said she’d come, and they turned, without crossing the road, and headed to the shopping centre next to the station, as she wondered what would happen next.
     
    • • •
     
    THEN
     
    That night, Sarah had decided to stay at her best friend’s house ‘til late. She figured that, if her dad could cheat on her mum for a few months and not get in trouble, why shouldn’t Sarah be allowed to stay out until eleven on a weeknight? She was sixteen and she never did this type of thing. Couldn’t hurt.
    It was Sarah’s mum who rang the house phone. Her best friend’s mum’s footsteps padded up to their floor, and opened the door as she said, “Knock, knock.” She gave Sarah a look as she handed her the phone. “Your mother.”
    Wordlessly, Sarah mouthed her best friend for help. “What do I say? Should I just hang up?”
    In the end, Sarah took a deep breath and said, “Hi Mum.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me where you were? Took me an hour to find you!”
    Alarm bells rang in Sarah’s head. Her mum didn’t know where she was, which meant …
    “You went through my stuff!” Sarah cried.
    “Come home, Sarah,” her mum said. “We have some things to discuss.”
    Sarah didn’t argue. Her best friend tried to get her to stay. She told her to tell her mum she’d caught a stomach bug, and couldn’t move without throwing up, or that they’d realised just now they had a project due tomorrow they had to start together now.
    It wasn’t worth it. It would have involved too much planning to make their stories match up and become foolproof. Her mum would ask for details, and at that moment Sarah couldn’t say if she was relieved to be caught, or if it was just a build up of lies that Sarah couldn’t take anymore.
    Sarah waited on the couch just at the front window with her legs crossed, picking at her fingernails, and waiting for the moment when she heard the familiar rumble of her mum’s car.
    She should have been nervous she’d get in trouble for staying out late, but it wasn’t that. She should have been angry that her mum probably went through her diary, or the stuff she’d saved on her computer, but still, she was too worried about the most important thing.
    The thing that Sarah absolutely knew was that her mum knew about what her dad had been doing. Sarah hated secrets, but she was an even bigger coward. When she felt guilty, Sarah would write in her diary. She used photo programs to make pretty pictures with her words on them. Sarah loved reading and words, words of any kind. She would write them down, only to go back and agonise if every one was right.
    So Sarah told her secrets through words. She didn’t know how to write formal prose, so she just spilled her secrets like mind vomit poetry. It came out without shape, purpose or style.
    As she sat on the couch, they all left her alone. Her best friend sat on the other one with her mobile, and her friend’s mum walked through the house, dusting lampshades and swiping surfaces with cloths. When she saw Sarah looking, she smiled and moved to another part of the house.
    How long? Did Sarah’s mum find out tonight when she’d read Sarah’s secrets? Had she known all along, and kept it from Sarah until she found out tonight that Sarah knew, anyway, about the disgusting, bad things her dad had been doing with some other woman?
    There were many poems that could have been horrible for her mum to see. She remembered one now:
     
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    it bangs on