Huntress Read Online Free PDF Page B

me think.  Found real mom on the day that you finalize your divorce. Yeah I don’t know if I have anything specific to that. How about we go with Ready to Start by Arcade Fire?”
    This I could do. This was familiar territory. I had a crappy day, week, life and Fred would recommend a great song to help me breathe through it. “That’s absolutely perfect. Thanks.” I smiled through the anxiety. “Tell Marni I said hi.”
    “You bet! Remember, you’re awesome.”
    I was not going to cry. “Thanks,” I squeaked out before hanging up.
    Okay, so I was crying.  The absolute brutal truth is that emotions and I just didn't exist on a compatible level.  You learn how to deal with things while you're young, and my youth had taught me that Suppress is Best.  Normally, I'd have tried to be stoic, and then let myself tear up a bit in the shower where it's impossible to distinguish tears from shower mist.
    This had completely unhinged me.  Jokingly, I'd usually tell my friends that I could deal with two out of three things going to crap in my life and still have time to make an excellent soufflé out of the shit falling around me.  Guess I needed to purchase some real estate on the River of Denial.
    I queued up the song on my iPod and hit play.  The music washed over me.  By the time the chorus rolled around I was singing along at the top of my lungs. “If I was scared, I would. And if I was bored, I would. And if I was yours, but I’m not.” 
    Jesus, at the rate the tears were falling, I was going to cause a 50-car pileup on the highway.  Pulling over before another wave of emotions hit me seemed to be the best bet.  Sobs shook my body as I put the SUV in Park.  I wasn't this weak!  Why did everything feel so - so hard right now?!  Physical pain lanced through my stomach, doubling me over and the tears streamed faster down my face.  Oh.  My.  God.  I was turning Emo.  I'd probably cried more in the last two weeks than I had in my entire life.  My fists pounded the steering wheel a few times before I let my head rest against the hard leather of my seat.
    That’s when the hiccups started. You know you’re doomed when crying gives you the hiccups. “Oh for fuck’s sake,” I muttered, scrubbing at my eyes and dislodging a contact in the process. Christ, I was never going to get home if I couldn’t see the road.
    Closing one eye so I could find the other contact without severe vertigo, I remembered that Rose had jokingly shoved an old pair of glasses into my glove box about a month ago.  "Since you're an old lady now, you should keep all of your handicap accessories close at hand," she'd said with a wink.  I wiped at my nose and reached over to grab them.
    Getting contacts out of teary eyes should be easy, right?  Yeah.  Not so much.  I nearly stabbed my eyeball out with a ragged nail and the cut on my palm was starting to sting from the salt of my tears. Finally both of them were out and I flung the remaining bit of plastic out of the window - hoping as an afterthought that it was biodegradable.  Dylan was always nagging me about going ‘green.’ I guess it was starting to stick.
    Shoving my glasses up my nose, I turned back to the glove box and reached for the pack of cigarettes, only to find a pack of peppermint gum and some carrot sticks in sandwich bag tied to a short note. It read –
    Those things are going to kill you. Chew gum instead. Oh and the carrots are for the diet you need to put yourself on. We need to get you ready for this and you’re not going to prepare yourself by eating chocolate fudge chunk cookies and smoking a pack a day.
    I bristled with anger and crumpled up the note. Who the hell was she to tell me…? I crammed a carrot stick into my mouth and bit down with a satisfying crunch.  I guess it could have been worse - she could have stuck broccoli or green beans in there. 
    The drive back to town seemed to be shorter than the drive out to the middle of nowhere and I was