Phantom Limbs Read Online Free PDF

waited in the hall for Dara to come out of the locker room. Kiera emerged, combing her wet hair. “Hey, Otis. You know Dara left, right?”
    “She did?” I checked my phone for a message. Nothing.
    “You need a ride home?” Kiera smiled at me and tipped her head. It reminded me of Meg, who had this way of tilting her head when she asked me a question, or when she listened to me. It made me feel interesting. Important. Loved.
    “Earth to Otis?” Kiera widened her already-big brown eyes and jingled her car keys.
    “That’d be great. Thanks.”
    Kiera’s car was new — a far cry from Dara’s. It had that glorious new-car smell. Dara’s had that chlorine-and-old-french-fries smell.
    “So you’re practicing a lot out of season,” I said as Kiera drove to my house. She knew where I lived without asking for directions, which I decided not to overanalyze. “Don’t you usually just do mornings?”
    She shrugged, squinting against the late-morning sun. “I don’t mind swimming doubles in club season, if I have time. I don’t know how you keep up with homework, the way you train. And don’t you have, like, a four-point-oh GPA?”
    “No,” I said, waving her off — though it actually was pretty close to a 4.0.
    We talked about our honors English class. Kiera thought Chapman was kind of a dud, but I didn’t think he was so bad. “Well, sure,
you’d
think that,” she teased. “You’re his favorite, obviously.”
    I blushed and, unable to locate actual words, made a few random noises.
    When she pulled into my driveway, she turned to me with that provocative smile of hers. “Hey, are you hungry? ’Cause I’m starving.”
    Under other circumstances, I might have said yes, but all I wanted to do was sit and watch for a message from Meg. “I’ll probably just raid the fridge for leftovers,” I told Kiera, picking my bag up. “I have a ton of homework.” I rolled my eyes for effect.
    She nodded, but I felt her disappointment.
    “Thanks for the ride,” I said as I got out of the car. I started up the walkway, habitually averting my eyes from the front bay window. It’s where Mason used to sit, in the window seat, watching for me to get home from school. The perpetual emptiness of that window was a chronic stab of pain. It never got easier.
    Kiera beeped as she pulled away, and I turned to wave. As she drove off, my eyes were drawn to the magnolia, now in obscene full bloom. On impulse, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it.
    Upstairs, I posted the photo without comment on Facebook, where I never posted anything, and made it public. If Meg ever stalked me the way I stalked her, she might see it.
    I ate lunch, and then worked on my last English homework assignment for the year — a sonnet, courtesy of Chapman and our unit on Shakespeare.
    Fucking sonnets. They’re only ever about one thing: love.
    I was screwed.
    I got up and looked at the window that once was Meg’s. A ten- or eleven-year-old boy lived in that room now, but I could still envision it as it used to be: the violets-and-ivy wallpaper border, the antique quilt that covered her bed, the corner of her room dedicated to her ten thousand stuffed animals, each of whom had a name, a distinct personality, and a complicated backstory that she’d made up — or made me make up. She liked it best when I did it.
    I gazed at the magnolia tree, remembering the view of it from Meg’s window — framed by white lace curtains and her collection of snow globes on the sill.
    Beneath your window our magnolia stands.
    There it was — line one of my sonnet, iambic pentameter and all.
    Froofy.
I could hear Dara’s voice in my head. Ignoring it, I stretched my arms, rolled my head around, cracked my knuckles, and continued.
    By evening it was finished. It wasn’t Shakespeare, but I thought it wasn’t bad.
    Magnolia
    Beneath your window our magnolia stands,
Its blushing petals seem to wave and sigh,
Its branches like so many outstretched hands,
In