Jeremy Stone Read Online Free PDF

I—
    Wrong path, OM said.
    Don’t go there unless you mean it.
    love you.

What Caitlan Said to That
    You’re just saying that because you don’t want me to kill myself. It’s not real love. It’s pity. And it’s noble of you but it doesn’t change the way I feel. Maybe I could have deeper feelings for you, too, but right now there is this big hole in my life with Jenson gone and I’m at least partly to blame for his death. And maybe I can join him this way. I don’t really know how it works, but I know I just don’t like it here anymore without him and I can’t find a way to move on.
    Stop, I said.
    I’m your way
    to move on.
    I don’t know. It’s not that easy. Nothing is that easy. Everything is hard. Everything is not right. I can’t just give up on Jenson. I can’t just stop feeling what I feel. I can’t just stop hurting. I can’t just
    What?
    Keep living like this.
    Old Man was shuffling around Coffee Coffee
    looking up at the fluorescent lights and
    cursing. Old Man always hated
    fluorescent lights.
    When he was alive he had told me how much
    he had
    hated fluorescent lights
    (Even makes Indians look pale.)
    and air conditioning.
    (If the Great Spirit wanted us to
    be cool all the time, he would
    have given us free ice year
    round.)
    Let me help you, I said.
    How?
    You’ll see, I said.
    I smiled
    and reached across the table and
    took her hand in mine.
    I leaned toward her
    and accidentally knocked my
    coffee over
    but I didn’t spill much.
    Old Man straightened his back
    and left.

The List
    Alone at night in my room.
    Now I had a list of things I had to do.
    I don’t like lists.
    But there it is.
    Help my mom hold it together each and every day.
    Stay in contact with my dad and reel him home somehow.
    Make Thomas Heaney stop being a cruel asshole.
    Help Jenson move on.
    Keep Caitlan alive.
    Discover who I really am and why I am here.
    All I could figure out was that the answer to the last item on my list
    was attached to all the items above it.
    My head was spinning but I
    made myself go to sleep
    by imagining that I was not
    a real person at all
    but
    the song
    in the throat
    of a sparrow.

Conference with Jenson
    I took the long way to school
    knowing I would be late
    but focusing on my request
    for Jenson to appear.
    But he declined on the walk,
    instead showing up
    during lunch
    when I was sitting alone
    with a soggy
    tuna fish sandwich
    I had made
    with way too much
    mayonnaise.
    Jenson was there in front of me and said, I don’t think
    you should eat tuna.
    Sometimes dolphins get killed by tuna fishermen. And
    they overfish.
    They use nets that get lost and swirl around the ocean
    capturing and trapping other fish that die. I just don’t
    think …
    I nodded towards the caf doors and led Jenson out into the hall and then outside the school. There I promised to never buy another can of tuna again, realizing one small joy had just gone out of my life.
    But I was glad to see Jenson.
    I told him about Caitlan and he said he didn’t know what she was going through.
    So I shouldn’t be here, he said. I’m only hanging
    around for me. I somehow thought
    I could be with her and help her
    and also fix this other thing with Thomas.
    I think, I said, you still have some kind of a hold on Caitlan. I think you need to somehow set her free and that, after a while, she will be okay.
    You say she’s cutting herself. That’s terrible.
    You think I’m doing this to her?
    It’s a funny business. I know it’s her doing it to herself but I think she has to feel it inside her that you are moving on and don’t want her to be with you. Does that make sense?
    Dude, not much makes sense but—
    But maybe you have to try. Unfinished business needs to be finished even if—
    If what?
    Even if it means letting go of someone you love.
    Jenson was silent and I listened for the sound of the wind and