The Mind Games Read Online Free PDF Page A

a week. A week for Lewis to heal. Then I would leave. I turned and pulled open the door. Nora was coming out of her room at the same time. She wore a white tank top and pink boxer shorts, her blonde hair sleepily mussed. She paused. I paused. I could feel the rawness of my skin from crying and embarrassment flushed my face. If she mocked me, I’d punch her.
    I turned, averting my gaze and moved into the bathroom. I certainly didn’t want to confront my newfound family looking like I’d just bawled my eyes out. They thought I was too weak to face my father, and my swollen eyes would only confirm my weakness.
    I turned on the cold water and splashed my face, even as I sensed Nora following me into the bathroom. Although I felt no connection to her, I couldn’t help but admit that we had an awful lot in common. Our parents, for one. I slid her a glance out of the corner of my eye. She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest. I couldn’t imagine what it had been like to be tortured by your own father. Would he have done the same to me? The thought was a bit sickening.
    “After breakfast, put on some shorts and a T-shirt,” she said, her voice still groggy with sleep. I had a feeling she wasn’t a morning person. “It’s going to be eighty-five today and we’re going to the beach.”
    Annoyed I jerked a clean towel from the bar. “I thought we were training.”
    “We are.” She grinned, shoving past me and grabbing her toothbrush. “But if we’re going to train, might as well be at the beach.”
    It was a small bathroom, too small for two people. I watched her warily. I’d never shared a bathroom with someone, especially not someone who didn’t know anything about personal space. She pulled her hair back and started brushing her teeth, not in the least caring that I stood there.
    If they thought to make this some sort of family reunion, they’d learn soon enough that I needed no family. I needed no one.
    ****
    Twenty minutes later my mom pulled into the driveway of an ocean-front cottage. Although it was small, the white paint on the clapboard siding was clean and fresh. Potted plants were settled around the front stoop, the flowers in full bloom with daisies, roses and a variety of other colorful blossoms I didn’t recognize. It was picture perfect and I was immediately suspicious.
    “Where are we?” I asked.
    “Tybee Island,” Nora provided from the front seat where she had called out shotgun. I’d been only too eager to have the back all to myself, the furthest away from my happy little family as I could get. I’d spent most of the drive staring at my mom’s head, wondering how in the hell she could possibly be alive, and wondering why I cared when she so obviously didn’t care about me.
    Still, as Mom put the car in park, I sat up straighter, peering through the car window over the wavering sea grass. Even though the water was much fiercer than the Caribbean, it was still the ocean and I was eager to be close to the waves.
    The sea had always pulled to me; promised to take me anywhere, promised comfort within its mysterious depths. I pushed my door open and stepped outside, breathing deeply. Salt water peppered the air and made me feel alive, made me feel at home.
    I didn’t wait for my mom and Nora but quickly found a boardwalk that led around the small cottage and followed it to a beach. It was still too early for tourists, but there were a few locals who strolled the shore looking for sand dollars and remnants of shells. I kicked off my flip-flops and stepped into the sand. The tiny crystals seeped between my toes, cooled my feet. The water looked cold, rough, unforgiving. This was not the gentle sea of the Caribbean. This was the roar and crash of the east coast.
    It made me miss the warmth of my island. It made me miss Grandma. Made me miss the life I thought I’d finally had. A life that had slipped away, much like the sandcastle a child had made yesterday, now crushed