Lunatic Fringe Read Online Free PDF

increasing
discomfort. “Don’t worry, you’ve already met half of us. There are
only three left, and they’re kittens.”
    Lexie was surprised at her relief.
“Oh,” she said and then after a moment, “Sure.”
    “ Excellent,” Jenna’s smile
widened. Hazel clapped twice and did a small jump. She threw her
slender arms around Lexie.
    “ That sounds like fun,”
Duane said.
    “ You’re not invited.” Hazel
released Lexie, and her demeanor chilled, like a waitress at the
end of a long shift.
    “ What if I’m gender
non-conforming?” Duane asked.
    “ Nice try, frat boy,” Jenna
said.
    “ I’m sorry for my dumb
comment. Hyenas are matriarchal and--”
    “ Whatever,” Hazel said.
“I’m over it.”
    “ Come on, Lexie. We’ll walk
you to the cafe.” Jenna put her arm around Lexie’s shoulders as
they left Duane on his way.
    So this is what it’s like
to be chosen , Lexie thought as she walked
with the women away from Duane. This is
what I asked for. This is what I hoped for ,
she repeated like a mantra. It felt more like a death knell
signaling her doom. If she could take it back, she would run back
to her father’s house, get a job at a diner, and call it a life.
But she’d been swept away in a river of expectations and ideals,
and she was faced with the classic evolutionary dilemma: adapt or
die.
     
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    Blythe’s house was on the western edge
of campus, just beyond the library and dining halls. The
cornflower-blue sky bid Lexie to leave her truck at the dorm and
walk. After five days of unrelenting stimuli, she had finally
managed to catch up on sleep, despite the bedlam in the hallway
outside her room the night prior. The students had wasted no time
in taking full advantage of their newfound freedom, partying with
kegs and blaring music. Throughout the evening, revelry clanged
throughout the campus, a celebration of the freedom that would soon
become shackles, tying students to their books, schedules, and
reputations for the next nine months.
    Lexie’s dormmates had made sculptures
with handfuls of the free condoms given out by the Safer Sex
Center, filling them with water, blowing them up like balloons and
tying them in strange configurations. In their packages they looked
fun and lively, like latex lollipops. Released from their
wrappings, they became pathetic creatures whose natural habitats
were, indeed, where one was often likely to find them, like parking
lots or littered gutters. In the lobby, students had spent the
whole night playing a spirited game of Truth or Dare, compelling
many of the dared to run naked across the lawn outside Lexie’s
window. Lexie had received invitations to these parties, as well as
a few tamer snack-and-chat nights, but in spite of the resolution
she’d made just days before, she only smiled a “maybe later” to
them all.
    As she made her way through the patch
of carefully cultivated trees in the town square, a familiar chill
stirred her shirttails and wafted up the cuffs of her jeans. It was
around this time ten years ago that her mother started staying away
from the house for longer and longer periods of time. Though Summer
would often not come home at night and be gone for days at a
stretch, without a word to anyone, Lexie’s parents never fought
about it. Lexie recalled those disconcerting nights when she’d be
tucked into bed by her sweet-faced, raven-haired mother, only to
hear a series of doors squeak open and closed: bedrooms, cabinets,
the hall closet to retrieve a coat, and finally, the front door.
The sounds heralded her mother’s disappearance for yet another
night. Her father never protested; he had always been a man of few
words, even back when he was happy.
    After the elusive Summer Pace had
finally left for good, Lexie spent months blaming her father for
not making her mother stay. She knew it wasn’t his fault even then,
but she couldn’t help but wish for him to unbridle himself from his
classical masculine