Finding Allie Read Online Free PDF Page A

life feel more solid.
    The line starts to break up. “I—meet—careful,” Marissa says.
    “I love you!” I say as clearly as possible, then push “End” on the phone Jeff lets me use. The room is still. Too still. I don’t want to be alone now. I want to be okay. Better than okay. I want to be part of a group of friends. Warm and eager inside, like I matter. I count. Like I can be part of something bigger than myself. For a few minutes I felt connected to Marissa. To the outside world. 
    To Chase.

Chapter Four
    I pull back the covers and slide into bed. The cold sheets feel almost like a hug. A comforting hug. I need one right now, because I feel scared. Excited and scared and weird, all at the same time. How can I feel so many conflicting emotions at the same time? 
    Chase.
    “Chase,” I whisper. Now I can say it aloud in the dark, empty house. Oh, it feels so special to say his name like that. To release it into the air in my bedroom. For his name to be spoken in a place I can’t leave.
    To say it like a chant. A talisman.
    A spell.
    Maybe if I say his name three times he’ll appear. I giggle at the thought and figure, why not?
    “Chase. Chase.” I snicker in the night, amused by my silliness.
    “Chase.”
    Silence greets me.
    The night is so hot. Jeff won’t let me use air conditioning unless it’s more than ninety degrees in the house. He says it’s to cut down on bills, but he runs it when he’s home alone. Once Mom died, everything changed. He treated me like he owned me. Like I was a burden, but one he wanted to keep for some reason he wouldn’t share. A ball of white-hot rage fills me.
    Once Mom died . Two years ago, she and Jeff went for a hike in the desert. Mom wasn’t the hiking type, but this is the story Jeff told the police, the news stations, all the people in town. They were in the desert and climbing big rocks when she slipped and fell down a two-hundred foot chasm. He told everyone her body fell so far he couldn’t see her.
    It took search crews more than four months to find her remains. They found her because of a small wildfire that got out of control and burned a few hundred acres. Charred bones are all we have of my mom. All they found. But they did find her, and we buried her. 
    And then Jeff tried to make Marissa move back home. She refused. She tried to get me out to LA, but Jeff refused to let me go. 
    Everyone got a choice except me.
    I turned eighteen a few weeks ago and the only thing stopping me is money.
    The white-hot rage is for Jeff, because so many unanswered questions make you burn. Burn for what isn’t right. Burn for answers you know are out there. Burn so the memory of Mom won’t get snuffed out like a candle in the wind.
    I don’t know what to do when I feel like this. The ball of anger has a mind of its own. I feel all my heat pour out into the sheets, making me feel trapped. My bed is an oven. The ceiling feels like it’s pressing down on me. I can’t breathe.
    I sit up straight and gasp, remembering everything I’ve lost. I can’t be like this. I need to make it all stop. If I think about Chase, if I go outside and see the moon, maybe it will all just go away.
    The image of his hand on my arm, the feel of his hot body against mine are what I need. If I can’t have him here, he can be in my thoughts.
    That has to be enough for now.
    I crawl out of bed and throw on my sneakers, not bothering with socks. An old sweatshirt of Mom’s is hanging off my desk chair, so I pull it over my head, halfway down the hallway before I shove my arms through the sleeves.
    As I open the front door, a loud, rusty creeeeeak sound cuts through the night. Jeff’s complained about needing WD-40 for ages, to oil the rusty hinges. But he never does anything about it. That’s Jeff. Why do something when you can just complain? 
    The moon helps me. When I look up at it and wrap my arms around my waist I feel like I have a friend. A big, shining face that listens. Sometimes