The Whole of My World Read Online Free PDF

and even Sister Brigid, who, while a nun – which is just plain weird – actually seems nice. I won’t tell him about Ginnie Perkins, though. I don’t want to think about her or her friends on my weekends. Monday to Friday is bad enough.
    I lie back again, knowing it’s always easier if I don’t have to look at him. His green eyes. His floppy hair. ‘One girl, Tara, is cool. She barracks for the Falcons –’
    â€˜Loser.’
    I shoot him the required filthy and continue. ‘We’re going to Fernlee Park next week – to watch the Falcons train. She says they’re just walking around like anybody else.’
    Josh laughed, half snort, half chuckle. ‘What, like real people?’
    â€˜You know what I mean.’
    â€˜Anyone else?’
    â€˜Geez, you want blood? No, there’s no one else. It’s only been a week.’
    Silence settles naturally then. Our usual arrangement of him being annoying and me shutting him down is reassuring. Maybe not everything has changed after all.
    â€˜The kids at school asked about you.’
    â€˜Who?’ I try to sound like I don’t care.
    Josh hesitates a second too long, like he’s struggling to come up with some names. ‘Julie . . . and Sam.’
    A fly hovers near my eyes, my nose. I brush it away but it refuses to give up. ‘They didn’t care much when I was there. Barely talked to them all last year.’
    â€˜Well, they asked. They wanted to know why you left – after . . . all this time.’
    He means since the accident. Why it took almost two years to leave. I shrug and push my hair off my face. ‘I have to have a reason?’
    Josh shakes his head. I almost feel sorry for him. He’s trying to say the right thing but there’s no right thing to say. ‘The boys at the club have been asking, too.’
    This one cuts like he knew it would. My heart ices over and I don’t feel sorry for him anymore. The fly buzzes and hovers, its fat body slow and lethargic as I try to wave it away. ‘Bloody flies!’
    â€˜They asked if you were coming back.’
    I roll away from Josh and face the edge of the track. The way the white paint bites deep into the turf, as though the weight of the paint flattened it and not the line machine that drew it.
    â€˜Jesus, Shell.’
    â€˜What?’
    Josh nudges me to face him, fixing me in that green-eyed stare. ‘You know what.’
    â€˜I tried, didn’t I? Gave it a year – almost two. They didn’t treat me the same. Like some of me was missing or gone. Like I was less than what I used to be.’ I shake my head, the memory of it sitting like a rock in my chest. ‘I’m done with them – with all of them, even the Raiders. Especially the Raiders.’
    â€˜How can you just be done ? That’s not how it works.’
    â€˜I’ve drawn a line, Josh. Between before . . . and after. Then. And now.’
    â€˜Is that you talking or your dad?’
    I sit up, tuck my knees under my chin, tight and small. ‘Me.’
    â€˜It doesn’t sound like you.’
    My shoulders lift and fall almost involuntarily. ‘I’ve changed.’
    â€˜I can see that.’
    I ignore the wave of panic that threatens to topple me. I want to claw it back, claw him back to where we were. Except there’s that line, and I’ve drawn it. We all have.
    After a long minute, Josh says, ‘Mum wanted to invite you and your dad to our house.’
    â€˜She’ll have to ask Dad.’
    â€˜I’m asking you.’
    â€˜Why? It’s not up to me.’
    â€˜I guess she thinks it kind of is.’
    I frown at him. ‘Why? When is it?’
    Josh is beside me now, forcing me to look at him. ‘The eleventh.’
    â€˜Of what?’
    Josh doesn’t need to answer that. I already know.
    â€˜June.’ He says it quietly, like something sacred.
    It’s weeks away.