Picking Up the Pieces Read Online Free PDF Page B

at me. “Nothing.”
    “Then why are you crying?” I reached for her face, wiping the tears off her cheeks.
    Her mouth twisted to the side as she looked down at her lap. “Jenny Blakely tricked me.”
    “What did she do?”
    “She asked me if I wanted to sit with her at lunch, so I did. She wanted my cookie, so I gave it to her after she told me she wanted me to be her new best friend. But at recess she said I was stupid if I believed she could be friends with a freak.”
    I knew that Jenny was one of the popular girls in the fourth grade and I also knew she had a mean streak. It must have been hereditary because her older sister Maggie—who happened to be in my class—had one too. But while I knew how to handle mean girls, gullible Rose didn’t have a clue. “Rose, why did you believe her?”
    She looked up at me with her trusting eyes. “Why wouldn’t she want to be my friend?”
    I talked Momma into letting me make cookies that night so long as I cleaned up my mess and the rest of the kitchen while I was at it. When she wasn’t looking, I put laxatives in a small batch of the dough, keeping it separate from the rest. I packaged the special cookies up in individual sandwich bags, using a marker on the plastic to address them to Jenny and a handful of other kids who had been mean to Rose. Then, to make sure their troubles wouldn’t be tied back to my sister, I packaged undoctored cookies for the other fifteen students in her class. I put them all into a small brown bag decorated with ribbons and gave them to Rose. “Hand these out to everyone in your class, but be sure to give them to the right people.”
    “Thank you, Vi.” She threw her arms around my neck, squeezing tight. “Everyone’s really gonna like me after this.”
    Poor Rose. She was so sweet and kind, it never occurred to her that other people might not be. Especially her own sister.
    That was the irony of it all. Rose was the good one, and I was the wicked one. Seeking revenge and retaliation all while I had the sweetest of smiles on my face. No one ever suspected a thing, least of all Rose.
    By the time I was in high school, I’d mastered the art of manipulation. But by then my use of it had expanded beyond defending my sister. It also came in handy for my own personal gain. Mike Beauregard was one year ahead of me, but I decided he was my ticket out of my personal hell called home. He was everything I hoped to have and more. He was the quarterback on the football team. He was smart and popular. His dad owned a business in town and he planned to join it, which meant he’d stick around, allowing me to stay close to Rose. He was dating Stephanie Miller when I decided he would be mine, but it wasn’t hard to make him think she was cheating on him. A small part of me felt guilty for that, but that guilt quickly faded when Stephanie found a new boyfriend within a couple of weeks.
    I was already popular, but dating Mike raised me to a higher status. I was Homecoming Queen my senior year and I was happy, or as happy as I was capable of being with my stone cold heart.
    After I graduated, I got a job with an insurance agent while Mike had been working for his dad the past year. Mike didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get married—even though we’d discussed it—so I accidentally got pregnant to speed things along. Rose was in high school and Momma had gotten even meaner. I reasoned if I married Mike and moved out, I could bring Rose with me and ultimately save her from the witch.
    Imagine my surprise when Rose refused to go along with my plan. Mike and I had had a hell of a knock-down, drag-out fight over it after our wedding. All for nothing.
    “Momma needs me, Violet,” she insisted.
    “Momma needs a punching bag and that’s you, Rose.” I cupped her cheek. “Please. I worry about you now that I’m not there to protect you.”
    She slowly shook her head, her scraggly hair shaking with it. “I can’t leave her.” I saw the longing in