Last Day of Love Read Online Free PDF

light-years from home. Dad got a job as a line cook at Prejean’s, which was bigger and far less romantic than Victor’s. Eureka changed schools, which sucked. Before Eureka knew that Dad was even over her mom, the two of them were moving into a big house on Shady Circle. It belonged to a bossy lady named Rhoda. She was pregnant. Eureka’s new bedroom was down the hall from a nursery-in-progress.
    So, no, Rhoda, Eureka did not like that this new therapist lived way out in New Iberia. How was she supposed to drive all the way to the appointment and make it back in time for her meet?
    The meet was important, not only because Evangeline was racing their rival, Manor High. Today was the day Eureka had promised Coach she’d make her decision about whether to stay on the team.
    Before Diana died, Eureka had been named senior captain. After the accident, when she was physically strong enough, friends had begged her to run a few summer scrimmages. But the one run she’d gone to had made her want to scream. Underclassmen held out cups of water drenched in pity. Coach chalked up Eureka’s slow speed to the casts binding her wrists. It was a lie. Her heart wasn’t in the raceanymore. It wasn’t with the team. Her heart was in the ocean with Diana.
    After the pills, Coach had brought balloons, which looked absurd in the sterile psych-ward room. Eureka hadn’t even been allowed to keep them after visiting hours ended.
    “I quit,” Eureka told her. She was embarrassed to be seen with her wrists and ankles bound to her bed. “Tell Cat she can have my locker.”
    Coach’s sad smile suggested that after a suicide attempt, a girl’s decisions weighed less, like bodies on the moon. “I ran my way through two divorces and a sister’s battle with cancer,” Coach said. “I’m not saying this just because you’re the fastest kid on my team. I’m saying this because maybe running is the therapy you need. When you’re feeling better, come see me. We’ll talk about that locker.”
    Eureka didn’t know why she’d agreed. Maybe she didn’t want to let another person down. She’d promised to try to be back in shape by the race against Manor today, to give it one more shot. She used to love to run. She used to love the team. But that was all before.
    “Eureka,” Dr. Landry prompted. “Can you tell me something you remember about the day of the accident?”
    Eureka studied the blank canvas of the ceiling, as if it might paint her a clue. She remembered so little about the accident there was no point opening her mouth. A mirror hung on the far wall of the office. Eureka rose and stood before it.
    “What do you see?” Landry asked.
    Traces of the girl she’d been before: same small, open-car-door ears she tucked her hair behind, same dark blue eyes like Dad’s, same eyebrows that ran wild if she didn’t tame them daily—it was all still there. And yet, just before this appointment, two women Diana’s age had passed her in the parking lot, whispering, “Her own mother wouldn’t recognize her.”
    It was an expression, like a lot of things New Iberia said about Eureka:
She could argue with the wall in China and win. Couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket covered in glue. Runs faster than a stomped-on pissant at the Olympics
. The trouble with expressions was how easily they rolled off the tongue. Those women weren’t thinking about the reality of Diana, who would know her daughter anywhere, anytime, no matter the circumstances.
    Thirteen years of Catholic school had told Eureka that Diana was looking down from Heaven and recognizing her now. She wouldn’t mind the ripped Joshua Tree T-shirt under her daughter’s school cardigan, the chewed nails, or the hole in the left big toe of her houndstooth canvas shoes. But she might be pissed about the hair.
    In the four months since the accident, Eureka’s hair had gone from virgin dirty-blond to siren red (her mother’s natural shade) to peroxide white (her beauty-salon-owning