Red Velvet Crush Read Online Free PDF

seen her for years, not since one morning in middle school when I tossed out everything that reminded me of my mom.
    Billie must have dug her out of the trash. I pictured her pawing through the papers and soggy pizza boxes of our life, rifling down, all the way to the bottom to find this buried treasure.
    Her ballerina was alive and well, standing in fifth position inside the purple music box next to her bed. It was one of the few things in her life that wasn’t broken.
    I twirled the pink ballerina on my fingertip, remembering.
    Billie trusts me with her secrets. Sure, she steals, she lies, she dips her dirty finger into the sugar bowl every chance she gets, but she also lay next to me, night after night after our mom left, listening to “Tiny Dancer”and reaching over to turn the crank on the back of my music box before the song could end.
    I wrapped the little ballerina up again and slid her back into the box and then slid the box back under the bed, safe and sound, protected by dust bunnies and a worn coverlet, storing my anger away for another day.
    That day has come. All that anger is boiling away inside me.
    A ballerina is one thing—but a band?
    My toe shoots out, and I kick the wall instead of stubbing at it. It leaves a mark.
    I resent the assumption that I am just going to bring Billie along, that anything I am ever going to do she is automatically a part of, forever and ever, amen.
    Especially this. Because an incredible tingling ran through my body the very first time I played. It started in my stomach and made its way out, through every passage and vein and corpuscle, to the very tips of my throbbing fingers.
    When I play, I am alive. There is no gray sky. No half-assed attempt. No boring rerun or regurgitated speech or robotic, mindless following of the rules.
    Music fits into every empty spot in my brain. It fills it up and makes it swell. I thrum with it. Vibrate with it. Get lost in it.
    Billie can barely hold a guitar; forget about learning how to play one. That would require patience and focus and commitment, and she is allergic to all three. She fumbles; she strums; she smiles. The end.
    Music has been a single-minded, solitary pursuit that I didn’t have to share—until now.
    Billie walks past with a bag of chips in her arms as Dad stuffs his keys into his pocket and reaches for his scarf. I hear her crunching toward the couch. The TV turns on, and the sound turns up.
    â€œMaybe it’s time to consider putting her to sleep,” I say, my eyes following the trail of crumbs she’s left behind.
    Dad leans down to tighten the laces on his boot.
    â€œShe just wants what you have, Ted,” he says as he stands back up with a little groan. “She always has.”
    That is the problem.
    I want this time to be different. I want this to be mine.
    I want somebody, anybody, to say to me, “It’s okay to hate your little sister. Everybody does. It’s normal. Expected. She is truly a pain in the ass. We voted, and you are right.”
    Where is that support group?
    How can I sign up for that after-school program?
    I’ll even bake the cookies.
    When it comes to Billie, though, my dad has a blind spot—about the size of the Grand Canyon. He always has. I wish that just this once he would look down into that crevasse and see the river snaking along the bottom, slowly washing me away and cracking the rock. But he doesn’t.
    Not tonight, with his thoughts glazed over by the many hours of hard work still stacked up in front of him. Bills are piling up; food is running low; the day is disappearing. There will be no arguing with him, no understanding.
    He is hardly even here.
    I watch him go, his dark boots tromping across the side yard, and feel my heart settling into me, down and deep, resigning like the sun.
    â€œWell,” I say to a closed door and a streak of pale peach sky, “I, for one, am tired of it.”
    Winston is throwing a party. I’m