Make Me Desperate Read Online Free PDF Page A

freezing. It
was
chilly out for August. The temperature had fallen into the sixties with nightfall, and would probably go lower. Plus the dirt-covered limestone floor and the air in the cave were naturally cooler than outdoors.
    He’d brought a total of four camp blankets, two in each backpack. They’d put down one each for them to lie on, and each of them had one to cover them. He wanted to suggest they could share the same blankets, but he was too nervous to say it out loud.
    “How come you live with your uncle?” she whispered.
    “My mom’s dead.”
    “What from?”
    “Cancer. I don’t hardly remember her. She died when I was four. We lived with Grandma Rose ’til then. My mom and Grandma Rose got along, even though Mom wasn’t her real daughter, only her daughter-in-law. Then Mom died, and Grandma Rose got too sick to take care of me. She’s got a bad heart. Damaged valves. She gets real weak. There was nowhere to put me but with child services or with Emmitt.”
    He heard her shift in the darkness, and knew she faced him. The cheek nearest to her tingled, like his skin knew she was watching him in the darkness.
    “What about your dad?” she whispered.
    “Gone. He’s got bad blood.”
    “You mean he was sick?”
    “No. Just bad. Like Emmitt. Evil,” Jake replied darkly. “Grandma Rose says she doesn’t know where her boys got it from.”
    “You shouldn’t worry that you’ll be like them.”
    He twisted his head. “I’m not worried about that! I ain’t nothing like them.”
    “I know. Glad
you
know, too,” she shot back, and he sensed her rustling again, trying to get comfortable on the hard ground. “My father says that both your genes and your life experiences go into making you who you are, but there’s always the X factor.”
    Jake came up on his elbow, interested. “The X factor?”
    “Yeah. An unknown factor. I don’t know why they call it the X factor,” she whispered.
    “I do. I mean . . . maybe I do. Because
X
is the unknown. Like in math. When you solve equations, you solve for
X
.”
    “That’s algebra, isn’t it? We don’t start it until next year. What grade are you going into?”
    “Eighth.”
    “Oh, I thought you were younger.”
    He grimaced. “I’m going into eighth, but they let me take eighth-grade math last year. This year, I’ll take ninth-grade algebra. Advanced class,” he said, trying to bandage his wounded pride. Had she thought he was younger than her?
    “I hate math,” she said.
    “I love it. I mean . . . I don’t
love
it,” he amended, embarrassed. “But it’s okay. And I’m good at it. What do you like at school?”
    “English,” she replied eagerly. “Do you like to read?”
    “Yeah. I just read
Dune
. Did you read that?” he asked, heartened at how easy it was starting to feel, talking to her.
    “Yeah. I love sci-fi. Fantasy, too. Did you read
Lord of the Rings
?”
    “No. I will if you think it’s good. I have a library card. Well, I
did
,” he added under his breath. He’d had to give an address to get a library card. When Emmitt discovered the card in his bedroom, he’d gone stark-raving mad at the idea of Jake putting down the location of his secret mountain property on a legal document. It hadn’t mattered that Jake had insisted he’d put down Grandma Rose’s address, like he always did for school registration. Jake didn’t even know if Emmitt
had
a postal address. Emmitt had been too far gone in his rage at that point, however, to listen to reason.
    “I have
The Lord of the Rings
,
The Hobbit,
and most of the
Dune
books in my bookcase in my room,” Harper said. “My mom says I’ll have enough books to start my own library soon.”
    Jake tried to imagine Harper’s room. He bet it was nice, filled with photos and things she liked. But he really couldn’t imagine the details of a girl’s room, let alone a rich, city girl’s room. He just thought it’d make him feel warm to be in it, just like it made him