The Girl He Left Behind Read Online Free PDF Page A

wonderful scholarship,” her mother said. She reached over and squeezed Eve’s hand.
    â€œYou’re the best daughter anyone could ever have,” her dad said. “Never given us one moment’s worry.”
    â€œAnd we know you’ll keep on making us proud,” her mother added tremulously.
    Eve’s heart felt like a brick in her chest. How could she leave them without a word? How could she disappear on the eve of her high school graduation, abandon them and all they’d done for her and go off with a boy they knew absolutely nothing about, one they didn’t even know she was seeing? The shock, the scandal, the disappointment, the unbearable pain would kill them.
    Later, in her room, when the clock read 8:00 p.m. and then eight ten and finally eight fifteen and Eve knew the bus was leaving Crandall Lake, she told herself Adam had changed his mind. That he would call her. That the phone would ring any second, and she would snatch it up and call out to her parents that it was for her, and he would say he just couldn’t do it. He couldn’t leave without her.
    Wouldn’t he?
    * * *
    Adam spent most of his time at the hospital for the remainder of the week. And late Saturday afternoon, eight days after his mother’s heart attack, when her doctor said she could probably move over to the rehab center on Monday, Adam took a relieved breath and grinned at her. “So, Ma, you’re going to live.”
    â€œWe Crenshaws are tough,” his mother said softly.
    Adam nodded. They were tough. Well, hell, they’d had to be. His father, Frank, had been a gambler and a drunk, and he’d abandoned his family when Adam was six, then been killed in a freak amusement park accident a year later. The former Lucy Costa, his unlucky wife, had waited tables by day and cleaned an office building by night to support herself and her three boys. And even then, it was a struggle.
    â€œHeart problems run in my family, though,” Lucy added.
    â€œYeah, I know.”
    â€œSo you’d better take care of yourself or you’ll find yourself in the same boat one of these days.”
    Adam nodded again. He’d heard this same lecture many times before. In fact, Lucy had gotten on the “good health, take care of yourself” boat every time she’d visited him over recent years.
    â€œI do take care of myself, Ma.”
    â€œReally? Do you exercise every day? Do you eat right? I never see you eat anything except pizza.”
    â€œI eat all kinds of healthy stuff,” Adam protested. “And I work out all the time.” But he was mentally crossing his fingers, because he’d been slacking off lately. On both counts.
    A few minutes later, Austin, followed by Aaron, entered the room, and Adam, after greeting his brothers and giving his mother a goodbye kiss, told them he was leaving for the day. “I promised Sally I’d drop into the homeless shelter tonight, maybe play some music for the guys there.” Sally was a favorite nurse of his mother’s and they’d struck up a friendship.
    â€œNeed me to come along?” Aaron asked. In addition to all the social media and publicity stuff Aaron did for Adam, he was also Adam’s right-hand man and main gofer, both at home and on the road. Adam had initially put him to work because Aaron needed something to keep him on the straight and narrow, but in the past few years Aaron had made himself invaluable, and Adam depended upon him for just about everything he couldn’t do himself.
    â€œNah. I’ll be fine. It’s only Crandall Lake.”
    Aaron shrugged. “Okay. But give me a buzz if you need me.”
    Adam said he would and left. He wasn’t worried about needing Aaron. So far the paparazzi had been pretty respectful of his mother’s illness and left Adam alone. Except for a few pictures on Instagram and Twitter, they’d found bigger fish to follow. Adam knew all that