Last Stop Read Online Free PDF Page A

free to go out and disrupt the entire subrail system?” She was practically screaming.
    “I told you I didn’t do that!”
    “You could have been killed!”
    “I know!”
    “I’ve already lost one. Do I really need to lose you, too? Because of your own stupidity?”
    Enough. I had had enough.
    Enough of being yelled at. Laughed at. Framed for something I didn’t do.
    “I’m not stupid!” I shouted. “I only went out there because of him !”
    Fool
    Idiot.
    Loudmouth.
    “Who?” Mom asked.
    I wasn’t going to say it.
    But Heather knew. All my friends knew now.
    Mom was bound to find out sooner or later.
    I took a breath. “Dad,” I mumbled.
    “You were with Dad?”
    “No. See, I thought I saw Dad. On the platform.”
    Mom stopped short. “You mean—like a homeless person, living on the tracks? Oh, David, why didn’t you tell me ?”
    “No. No. It wasn’t him, Mom. It wasn’t anybody. It was a hallucination.”
    Mom’s whole body seemed to cave in. “David Moore, are you making this up?”
    “No!”
    “Are you just pretending you thought you saw Dad? Like that would make me forgive you for walking onto that platform? Like, ‘The stress made me do it, Mom’?”
    “Forget it—”
    “Do not play with me, David. I have not slept for months. I jump when the phone rings. I feel as if my insides have been pulled out and dragged across the country. And as much as I love you and try to understand how you’re feeling, I will not let you use your father as an excuse to behave like a monster!”
    Mom’s words were furious, but her eyes told a different story. They were saying, Tell me it’s true. Behind the fear and confusion and numbness was hope, like the gray light before a sunrise.
    I couldn’t speak. That hope was doing something to me. Pulling me inside her. For a moment, I felt the shock of Dad’s death all over again. Through her eyes.
    Pictures flashed in my mind—the old pictures in our hallway. Dad as a skinny young guy with a ponytail and a muscle shirt. Pointing to his crew cut in mock horror after he joined the force. Kissing Mom at their wedding. All images of Dad before I knew him. A stranger, really.
    My own mental picture of Dad was so different. He was older, grayer, and heavier. That was the dad I had lost.
    In a way, though, Mom had lost all those men on the wall. Every single one.
    I realized she was feeling pain I could never know.
    And now she was looking to me for an answer. For hope.
    Well, I knew something about hope now. It transforms you. It’s like a mirage in the desert. You see it where it doesn’t exist. On a TV show. In the blank expression of a detective.
    On a rotting subrail platform.
    And just like a mirage, it lets you down. Hard.
    I couldn’t give that hope to Mom. It wasn’t fair.
    If I was cracking up, I didn’t need to drag her down with me.
    “It’s stupid, Mom,” I said, looking away. “Just…like a hallucination or something. I haven’t been feeling right lately. That’s all…”
    My voice trailed off. For a long time, Mom didn’t reply.
    Then I felt her arm around my shoulders.”David,” she said gently, “I think we both need a vacation.”
    What I needed first, however, was a shower. Which I took right away when we arrived home.
    Afterward I headed straight to my room. I carefully closed the door, then dumped onto my desk the contents of my pocket—a Yumm-E wrapper, subrail tokens, keys, two rubber bands, a jumbo paper clip…
    The sky-blue card was tucked into a folded-up homework assignment.
    My stomach started to flutter.
    Hope.
    No.
    Get rid of it. Don’t even look.
    I ran to the bathroom and lifted the toilet seat.
    With one hand I grabbed the flusher. With the other hand I held the card over the bowl.
    And I read the words.

This was not part of the plan.
    In order to get closer,
    You sometimes must fall behind.

9
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