Ten Tiny Breaths 0.5 In Her Wake Read Online Free PDF Page B

boyfriend, the best friend who I helped kill.
    The little black-haired sister whose face is a carbon copy of hers. Who’s now an orphan.
    There must be over two hundred pictures posted on here. And I’ve sat on this couch for days, laptop in hand, memorizing every last one. Kacey and her best friend, Jenny, in bikinis, holding hands and jumping off a rocky ledge into the lake below, their mouths open with exhilarated screams. Kacey, wrestling with her father in the grass and smearing what appears to be melted chocolate all over his nose. Kacey and her boyfriend, Billy, holding hands, laughing, stealing kisses.
    Kacey, smiling devilishly at the camera. Always smiling.
    Did that smile survive?
    Along with the pictures are plenty of posts. Cute banter between her and her best friend, who apparently had a thing for Hannah Montana, while Kacey clearly did not. Hilarious one-liners between her dad and her, where her dad quotes old movies and she gives the most ridiculous answers back. Billy and her trying to outdo each other with the cheesiest “What do you call . . .?” jokes I’ve ever read.
    Thanks to Facebook, I’ve learned that Kacey has a small army of friends who beg her to hang out with them on weekends. Sometimes she says yes, that Jenny and she will come. It’s never just her. And sometimes she says that she’s hanging out with her family that day. It’s so obvious that the Clearys were tight.
    Her last post reads, “Better luck, next time, Saints! You can’t beat this redheaded Irish girl.” It’s dated April 25th.
    The Friday of the accident.
    After that, nothing but an endless stream of well wishes and prayers from friends and family fill her wall.
    There isn’t a single response from Kacey.
    But there are a slew of condemning messages about “the assholes who did this to you.”
    “Aren’t you sick of the dark?” Madison turns on a table lamp. She shivers against the cool basement air. “It’s beautiful out. Eighty-two degrees and blue skies.” Her eyes linger over my unshaven face, my rumpled jeans and T-shirt, and that deep furrow between her brows deepens. “When did you go outside last?”
    Murphy hears the word “out” and his head pops up, his tail wagging. I push my laptop closed, half with reluctance and half with relief. “Not today.”
    Not yesterday either.
    I should probably take the poor dog for a walk. I can handle it now. The doctor cleared me for light exercise last week. My body—in decent shape before the accident, despite my shoulder injury—could use it now.
    “Are your parents still at the office?” Madison asks as she perches herself on the edge of the couch as if trying to avoid the dirt. Or me.
    Hell, I may not have shaved or chosen clean clothes, but I have showered. I don’t think I smell. I’m half-tempted to take a whiff of myself. But after spending the entire day flogging myself with pictures of dead strangers, I decide that I don’t really give a damn.
    “Yeah. More and more lately. Dad’s got a big case, so . . .” So, he’s using it as an excuse to not come home. And when he does make an appearance, he’s got a tumbler full of scotch in hand. He doesn’t get shit-faced, but it’s still concerning. My dad’s never been one for hard liquor.
    He and my mom also never fought. Sure, they’d have small spats over taking the trash out and lowering toilet seats, but there were never any major blowouts, no name-calling, no arguments that threw the household into a nuclear winter.
    Lately, though, fighting is all they seem to do.
    Growing up, my parents were the ones all my friends wanted to hang around. They liked to laugh and joke with everyone and never took anything too seriously. My mom was the agreeable chauffeur, and my dad loved swearing at the hockey commentators as much as we did. You’d never even guess that he’s a high-priced lawyer and my mom runs her own small but successful design firm. On weekends, my mom could be found in the