Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always Read Online Free PDF

confidence. The boy scowls, his brow heavy with metal barbells.
    Okay. So not that store. I keep moving, roaming the corridors like a tourist in a foreign city, my eyes wide and uncertain. Colors swirl around me—an endless stream of trendy fashions spinning on racks and colorful banners proclaiming sale prices and neon signs and television monitors with music videos flashing—herds of people pass me, their conversations loud and unintelligible to my dizzy ears. I stumble a little, and even the air feels strange surrounding me, artificial and busy, too full of motion. I stop and lean against the wall for a minute. When I look down, there’s that little smiley face on my fingertip. Lighten up.
    I laugh. Indeed. A deep breath, and I’m ready to dive in again, into the chaos. Make something up. Stupid self-discovery.
    I’m sure I wouldn’t have seen them if I’d been with Kayla, or with anyone else. There are things you see when you’re with your friends and things you see when you’re alone.
    I wander into the bookstore—the big one that my mother hates because they came into the mall and drove out the smaller chain that was there already, leaving only the used-books place downtown. Like I said, I’m not a big reader, but sometimes, I can’t explain why, I just like to go into a bookstore and look at the covers. I trace my fingers across the paperbacks on the display tables, all the different colors and textures and typefaces. Even though their stories don’t appeal to me, I can see why people want books, why they want to hold them in their hands and stack them on shelves and run their thumbs over the edges of the rough-cut pages.
    I find the cards in the bargain aisle, half price. I’m not sure I would have picked them up if Pastor Fordham hadn’t just been talking about the tarot, about witchcraft and sorcery and the dangers of the occult. It’s kind of funny, and I wonder what he’d think if he knew that his warnings against the evil are what draw me to it.
    The box is heavy in my hands, compact and wrapped tightly in plastic; I can see the bright spine of the guidebook and the dense rectangle of the deck itself. I’ve never even seen tarot cards before. On the front of the box is a picture, bright and alluring, a picture of the Fool. Like the book covers, this artwork captures my eyes, holds them hostage. I can’t put it down, this box of sin.
    “Thank you, Eric,” I find myself whispering. Sometimes I do that—I speak my thoughts out loud, or maybe I’ll move my mouth to the words in my head. It catches me off-guard every time, and I look around the store to make sure nobody heard, but I’m all alone here, clutching this secret. My birthday present. My riskiest moment.
    I pay for the cards, staring down at the counter as I shove the twenty toward the guy at the till. I half expect him to narrow his eyes at me, maybe quote Scripture or something. Possibly pick up a phone and dial my mother. Instead, he smiles and taps the spine of the book.
    “I like this one,” he says. “Good for beginners, but it doesn’t talk down to you.”
    I don’t answer. I don’t talk to people who work cash registers, not because I don’t want to but because my brain can only process one thing when I’m standing in line to pay for something, and that one thing is handing over my money. Sometimes I leave the checkout lane and hold a conversation in my head—the conversation I should have had if only I could pretend to be a human for a minute.
    I feel my face heat up. “Thanks,” I mumble. I grab the bag off the counter and duck back into my fluffy down jacket on my way out the door.
    My plan is to walk home from the mall, which isn’t a perfect plan, but it’s not like I have options. This town is too small to have a city bus, and my parents won’t even let me get my stupid license yet, much less a car. It’s not that far and I’ve walked it before, but it’s already dark, and the wind is colder than I