Margarette (Violet) Read Online Free PDF Page A

repeats.
    “Of course. What about people with problems
balancing?” He wobbles her slightly in his arms.
    She lifts a limp arm with effort, and touches his
chest. “You’re it.”
    Tommy smiles and taps her shoulder, making her
wobble again since he’s holding her up. “You’re it.”
    “Now that you’ve played, what’s your nickname?” she
asks him.
    “I don’t have one. What’s yours?”
    “I thought you knew…” she says, trailing off. “You
called me Violet.”
    “Violet? I said Margarette,” he clarifies.
    He starts to lose his grip on her, and his palm
presses against her back. If she was sober she would worry about his fingers
poking her back, but instead she just falls limp in the cradle of his arms. She
tucks her head into his shoulder and he steps with her back up to the car,
placing her on top of the trunk. She feels the cool metal beneath her and
sniffs the cut grass in the cool night air. She is alone with him and barely
able to stay awake.
    Margarette falls back across the trunk and slumps
into the rear windshield.
    “Don’t touch me…” she warns, showing her teeth and
crinkling her nose like a cat. “Oh, it’s you.”
    “You okay?”
    “Everything.”
    “What?”
    “Asimov is the end of everything.”
    Tommy has no clue what she means. “You probably
don’t remember me. I was a few lockers down from you when we were kids. I was
in your class last year. It was a make-up class, but it….” Her head rolls back.
“Hey. Hey, are you okay?” He leans over her to hold her behind the neck.
    “Tom… Tommy, are you pressing against me?” she
asks, and it comes off sultry.
    “I’m sorry,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to.”
    “Trying to what?” She bites her lower lip.
    “I just don’t know many girls like you. I think…
no one does. You’re not like anyone else.”
    “Everyone’s just like me,” she argues, still hazy.
    He dismisses her comment with a laugh. “Who are
you like?”
    “Every girl on earth….” She mumbles each word,
barely opening her mouth to speak. “Every girl is just like me. They all want
to be where I am right now.”
    “I don’t think so….” Tommy says.
    “Every girl… wants to be held.”
    Tommy smiles, a warm smile that she doesn’t see.
He says, almost to himself, “I didn’t know what to do when I found you.”
    “Take me….” She starts to say, and tries to sit
upright.
    “Take you where?”
    She struggles to clear her voice. “Take me home….”
    “But I don’t know where you live,” Tommy says.
    She slips forward and off the car, kneels on the
grass in front of him, as if she were going to be sick. He holds her as she
leans forward, gripping her shoulders. Her head presses against him and he
freezes, afraid to move away. She grows still and his hands touch the back of
her head.
    A soft wind blows past and it sounds like a girl
singing softly to herself.
    She doesn’t throw up, and doesn’t sound sick after
that, but she won’t move either. Tommy has to pick her up to get her into the
car. He lowers the passenger seat and lays her out flat, then carefully closes
the door making sure she’s tucked in. He goes around and gets in the driver’s
seat, and looks at her.
    Her dress is hiked up enough for him to see her
underwear. He smiles like a child eyeing a toy. They are completely alone, but
he still looks around. His hand slides down to her leg and he pulls down on the
hem of her dress, but only an inch or two. He leans in close and looks at her
rosy cheeks. He’s so close he can smell the drop of sweet fragrance she’s
wearing.
    She turns her head and smiles at him, but she isn’t
awake. Her eyes are shut… Tommy figures she’s acting out a dream. He wants to
kiss her. Why is he holding back? No one is there to stop him, except his
conscience. He worries about her being on drugs, or that people would find out
that he was with her like this. It’s not like she was known as a slut, but she’s
a lot younger