Mad Honey: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

afraid that might be the dealbreaker in our relationship.” But he’s smiling, and I think, Fuck, I can’t believe he is mine.
    We pass the opera house and there’s a sign out front that says, White Mountain Symphony Orchestra. All Mozart concert . Is Asher taking me to the Mozart concert? Is this the big surprise? But he just keeps driving.
    In Presidents’ Square, snow falls on the statue of Franklin Pierce. “Poor dude,” I say. “He looks cold.”
    “He’s used to it.”
    “His son died in a train wreck, a couple months before he became president,” I say quietly. “The kid was only ten years old. Pierce never got over it.” We’re crossing over the train tracks, passing by the old mill. “You see that with people all the time, something bad happens and it wrecks them. They turn into ghosts.” I can feel Asher looking at me. I try to pull the sleeve of my coat down over my right wrist.
    “You’re not a ghost,” says Asher.
    Which is ironic, because I am positive Asher is the only person who truly sees me.
    We pull into the parking lot of the A- 1 Diner. “You ready?” he says, and turns off the engine.
    “This is my surprise?” I ask, looking into the diner. There’s a man drinking coffee at a booth, and a bored waitress reading a newspaper behind the counter. I’m trying not to feel disappointed.
    Asher, on the other hand, is radiating excitement.
    “Come on,” he says.
    We walk up the stairs into the A- 1 . Asher holds open the door. I step in and immediately smell French fries and coffee. The waitress looks up from the paper.
    So does the man in the booth.
    I haven’t seen him in two years. I’ve never seen him with a beard before. It’s almost completely gray. “Dad?” I say.
    “Hey, Champ,” he says, standing up.
    “Merry Christmas, Lily,” says Asher.
    This is not happening. This is not my life anymore . But there is Asher, and there is my dad, like potassium and water. Any second now, there will be an explosion.
    Everything starts to spin around me, and I look in panic, first at Dad, and then at Asher. What the fuck? I want to ask him. Of all the things you could have given me, you brought me to see the one person I hate most in the entire world.
----
    —
    FIVE MINUTES LATER, I’m on a park bench across from Town Hall, snow settling in my hair. The single traffic light in town blinks yellow.
    I pull out my phone and stare at it for a full minute. What I want is to talk to somebody who knows me. Which is who, if it’s not Asher?
    My mother, but I can’t tell her this .
    I could call Maya, I guess, but I know she’ll just take Asher’s side. It’s what she always does.
    So I sit, shipwrecked on the park bench with the snow coming down on the glowing glass of my phone until it goes dark.
    The last time I saw my father was at a fencing match—two yearsago, I guess. I was down on the piste with my sword pointed toward the foilist from Hartshorn Academy. Thirty seconds into the match I flèched my competition with an ear-piercing yell. And the kid from Hartshorn screamed and ran back to his bench. Everyone in the field house laughed, applauded. The ref gave me the point.
    Then, from the bleachers, I heard that voice. It had been four years. But I knew who it was without even looking. And that he was drunk. I remembered what it was like to have him in my life, what it was like to spend so much time so incredibly scared. On any given day, you never knew which dad was going to show up. Sometimes there was the nice one, the one who called me “Champ.”
    Then there was the other one.
    That’s my kid! he shouted. That’s—
    I dropped my foil and ran.
    The snow is gathering in my hair and my teeth are chattering from the cold, but I feel like I’m being incinerated from the inside. From inside Town Hall, I hear people applauding.
    “Lily.” I glance up to see Asher. He looks like he’s been shot with a bow and arrow. My first thought is Good .
    “I don’t really want to