Seasons of Change Read Online Free PDF Page A

underneath my chin and raised it up so that our eyes met, and I felt myself starting to fall into the darkness of his eyes. “I can’t leave, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t,” he said to me. This is where all of our conversations ended up.
     
    “Why do you keep saying that?” I asked him, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “Why would you think that I’d leave without you?”
     
    “Because you should, because you have to,” he had said, his finger still underneath my chin, his eyes still trained on mine. “You should get out of here, go to college—you’re too smart to waste away in this place,” he added.
     
    “Right, go to college with what ? I don’t think they take IOUs at Harvard.” I laughed harshly. “And what about my mom? You get to be the heroic one and look after your family, but I’m supposed to just leave without a backward glance?” I asked him, trying to make him see what he was asking of me .
     
    “You know you’d get a scholarship at any college you applied to. Your SAT scores are basically a free pass to anywhere you want to go,” he reminded me without a hint of jealousy or bitterness.
     
    Jake was just stating the facts and it didn’t help at all that I knew he was right. I must be one of the only people in America whose teacher just shook her head in disappointment when she saw my amazing scores, because she knew that they were as Jake described: a free pass.
     
    But she also knew they were a pass I was never going to get to use, not unless things changed pretty seriously in our little town.
     
    No one leaves. Not without the Angel’s say-so, at least.
     
    “And I’ll look out for your mom,” Jake said, bringing me back to the problem at hand. “You know that. I wouldn’t let anything happen to her,” he assured me, and I knew that he was telling the truth. “You’ve paid your dues. More than,” he added hastily, “If she was, you know…” he trailed off awkwardly clearly not knowing how to continue.
     
    “If she was what? Sane? Not virtually catatonic? Able to hold a conversation? Not a shell of her former self?” I asked, and my voice sounded harsher than I had meant for it to. Whenever talk turned to my mom I felt the anger bubbling up inside of me. For all intents and purposes, I’d lost two parents the day that my dad died.
     
    “Hey, Aimee, come here,” Jake had said as he had seen the tears threatening to spill over my cheeks and he’d pulled me close to him. He’d held me, his strong arms around me, and I’d laid my head against his chest, listening to the sound of him breathing and the vibrations of his heart as it beat deep inside of him.
     
    We stayed like that for a while, but it wasn’t long enough. I felt the heat coursing through me, the heat that had become synonymous with Jake in recent months, and I let my arms fall from around his waist and stepped back out of his embrace.
     
    A look had passed across his face—it has looked a little like disappointment, but that wouldn’t have made any sense, would it?
     
    “Don’t go getting all soft on me now, Summers,” I had said jokily to break the tension that I was feeling stretching out between us like a string. “Or were you just trying to cop a feel?” I laughed and wondered at what point our easy banter had made me feel like blushing.
     
    “Well it’s been a slow few months,” Jake had shot right back, shrugging as if to say what can I do?
     
    “So, Don Jake hasn’t been having much luck with the ladies? What happened? You lose your touch?” I asked, playing along with him and trying to ignore the way that the idea of Jake having any luck with the ladies made my stomach turn.
     
    Ever since we’d hit high school and Jake had filled out and grown into his body, he’d been in high demand with all the local girls and he’d pretty much managed to work his way through all the girls our age, some younger and some quite a bit older.
     
    I had always