These Gentle Wounds Read Online Free PDF Page A

you’re afraid of heights, but I’m not sure what it’s called when you can’t get enough of them.
    Jim’s house, the one he inherited from his parents, the one we’re living in, has a widow’s walk—kind of a walled-in area on the roof that goes around the whole top floor. Kevin and I have been climbing out our bedroom window onto it ever since we started living here.
    That’s a lie.
    I’ve been climbing out. Kevin has been following me to make sure I don’t jump.
    I’m not stupid. And I’m not suicidal. I don’t want to jump to my death any more than I wanted to die by drowning. But the urge to step off the wall—to free-fall through the air, to fly—is painfully hard for me to resist. I know I can’t fly. I know it would end badly, with me crumpled in a bloody and probably dead mess. But sometimes I want to take that step so badly it hurts. My stomach clenches and for a minute I believe the only thing that will help is to go over that edge.
    Even Kevin knows his lectures about control won’t help when I’m feeling like that, so it’s only his grasp on the back of my sweatshirt that stops me.
    I know it’s wrong, but I can’t keep from going up there. The one concession I’ve made to both common sense and my brother is that I’ve promised I won’t go up there alone. So far, this is a promise I’ve kept.
    But now everything in my head is clumping together. Memories of my mom, fear of my dickhead father, confusion about Sarah, that freaking letter … all of it is making me feel like I’m going to explode if I don’t get out.
    So I head to the window, but Kevin calls me back. “Don’t you have a game tonight?”
    â€œWalker’s starting,” I mumble. I hope he isn’t going to grill me about it, because I’m not sure I can deal with one more thing tonight.
    I must look desperate, because Kevin shifts gears and says, “Hey, I almost forgot. I have something for you.”
    I take the brown paper bag he holds out. It rattles as my hand shakes and I wait for an explanation.
    â€œMark is finally trying to quit smoking,” he says.
    I’m not sure what that has to do with anything. I know his friend Mark a little, but I’ve never smoked. My father smoked. The smell still makes me gag.
    â€œHe wears one of these on his wrist and snaps it whenever he wants a cigarette. He says it distracts him or something,” Kevin explains.
    I stick my hand into the bag and pull out two stretchy circles of leather. They’re kind of like rubber bands only they look cool, braided and dark with patterns of color running through them.
    â€œI thought they’d work better than the pens,” he says.
    Now I get it. Kevin hates the pens.
    I usually have one with me in case my hand starts acting up. The clicking annoys the crap out of him.
    But I never do it for that reason.
    Well, almost never.
    Mostly I do it because it calms me down. And sometimes it keeps the spinning at bay.
    I put one of the bracelets on and snap it hard against my wrist. It doesn’t hurt, but it’s a sharp jolt that seems like it will keep me where I need to be, in the moment.
    â€œThanks,” I say. I mean it, but my head is already somewhere else. I reach under my bed and pull out the screwdriver I took from the tool shed the last time Jim forgot to lock it. I push it against the window frame and start to jimmy the lock open. Ever since I climbed onto the walk in my sleep one night, Kevin holds the key hostage. I get tired of begging for it or trying to steal it when he isn’t watching.
    My brother crosses his arms and shakes his head while I work at the window.
    â€œCan this wait?” It’s clear from his expression that he has other things to do. He probably should have thought of that before getting detention.
    I want to make things easier for Kevin instead of always being a