Possessing Jessie Read Online Free PDF Page A

near her.
    Neither did Alisha. But somebody had to do something.
    She took a firm grip on her tray–mystery meat, ick–and marched herself over to sit across the table from Jessie.
    Her friend, actually eating the rather disgusting lunch, ignored her.
    Pointedly Alisha said, “Hel-LO.” Jessie glanced up, and Alisha looked her in the face.
    Jessie stared back stony-eyed, no smile, even though she was close enough so that Alisha could smell her, and she definitely did not smell like any of Jessie’s favorite perfumes from Victoria’s Secret. Instead, she smelled like Axe.
    â€œJessie,” Alisha blurted with more force than she had intended, “you’re sick.”
    â€œYeah, yeah.”
    â€œStop it, Jessie! Talk like yourself.”
    Jessie put down her fork. Her face softened, and her posture relaxed. “What self is that?” she asked in her normal quiet voice. “I don’t have a self.”
    Alisha felt so relieved, she didn’t really hear what Jessie was saying. She just knew that her friend was still in there, under the spiked hair, behind the 250 Club T-shirt, and beneath the Axe.
    Jessie added, “Before I started dressing up like this, I was nothing. Nobody knew who I was.”
    Uh-oh .
    Quietly and carefully Alisha said, “That’s not true. I knew who you were. Plenty of people knew who you were. Just about the smartest person in the school, that’s who you were, probably going to be valedictorian, and you studied hard and stayed out of trouble and you wanted a real future–” Alisha stopped, shocked at herself for saying it all wrong, in the past tense.
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Jessie murmured.
    â€œDon’t disrespect yourself!” Alisha tried to keep her voice down but got loud anyway. “You still are smart and you still are going to be somebody and you still are my best friend.”
    Jessie smiled, but tears shimmered in her eyes.
    Alisha lowered her voice. “You are so a special person.”
    â€œYeah, well, tell that to my mother.” Jessie’s misty glance shifted downward to the left. “She looks right through me.”
    â€œYour mother ?” Alisha leaned forward. “Why?”
    â€œI don’t know!”
    â€œHave you asked her?”
    â€œShe won’t tell me. I told you before, she doesn’t talk to me.” Jessie looked back up at Alisha, her eyes wincing with pain. “She blames me, I guess.”
    â€œ Blames you? What on earth for?”
    â€œBecause I should have died with Jason.”
    Alisha felt her gut lurch. “Now that makes a lot of sense. That would make your mother feel so much better.”
    â€œI’m not sure it wouldn’t!”
    Alisha asked softly, “Jessie, is the bad movie still running in your mind?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œYou said the accident kept replaying in your head.” And Alicia thought the trauma might have her confused.
    Jessie stared back at her, blank, then bemused. “Nuh-uh. Not at all today. I guess it’s gone.”
    â€œGood!” Alisha felt hope for her friend. “Then would you please just tell me what’s going on? What happened? Why would your mother blame you?”
    Jessie sighed, then said in a quiet, dead tone, “I was supposed to be teaching Jason how to pass his road test. We had a fight because he wanted to drift Dead End Bend, and–and I slammed out of the car. I told him to go get killed and see if I cared.”
    Alisha felt the pain behind Jessie’s soft words so sharply that she couldn’t speak.
    Jessie said, “Then he went and did it.”
    Alisha found her voice. “Jessie, it’s not–”
    â€œI also told him to go to hell.”
    â€œNot your fault! Words don’t make things happen.”
    â€œI hope not. I hope there isn’t a hell or he’s not in it.”
    â€œThere isn’t, and he’s not, and you’re not