Touching the Surface Read Online Free PDF

shit! I was leaving a trail of damp tissue paper on my skirt and I didn’t have another change of clothes for the party.
    “Hello?”
    The airbag responded first, exploding into me. The seat belt bit into my chest, trying to hold me back from the metal and glass that had silenced Annie Lennox’s voice. Something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t quite figure out what it was. I felt as if my brain was moving at a fraction of its normal pace.
    Oddly, I was now holding the phone clutched between my fingers. A panicked far-off voice kept screaming “Ellie!”
    I tried to open the car door, but it didn’t seem to work when I tugged at the handle. I used my shoulder to shove it. When I stepped out, a cascade of glass fragments leapt to the pavement and scattered like stars across the night sky.
    I glanced up and saw the silver minivan with its front end wrapped around a tree, like a bun around a hot dog. The rear of the van was similar to an accordion. The sweet bite of gasoline crept into my nose. Unbidden, my feet began to move. I couldn’t look at my car. Instead I walked in a wide circle to the front of the minivan. I was afraid to get too close, but I was magnetically drawn to the wreck.
    The woman in the front seat was screaming. Blood streamed down her forehead and into her eyes. Her hands were flying everywhere. She was ripping at herself. Her seat belt finally released her and she was free. Stumbling out of the vehicle she practically They always said that you knew best, g beforetore the sliding door off its track. Her animalistic howl almost knocked me over. That’s when I saw her: a little girl, maybe three or four years old, buckled into her car seat. My heart stopped as the mom grasped the little girl’s head in her hands, smearing a bloody trickleacross the side of her face. As if the woman’s hands contained the spark of life, the little girl, ponytails crooked, reached for her, returning from horrific silence. The harder she strained against the car seat, wanting to be in her mother’s arms, the louder her cries became. I took a step forward thinking I could help, somehow fix things, but I stopped cold when I realized that the woman was tearing through the van like a hurricane. It didn’t make sense—why was she ignoring her daughter? What was she looking for? She whipped around, wild-eyed, searching. I froze, thinking that maybe it was me she was searching for, retribution her focus. She went as still as I. We waited—the only noise from the backseat, an endless “mommymommymommy” . . . thumping against my head like a heartbeat. Theof the sleek b

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    the
distribution
of guilt
    Waves of fear and horror washed over me. I was drowning. If I screamed long and loud, maybe I would disappear from the inside out. I wanted to die, but that really wasn’t an option anymore.
    That’s when I felt fingers gently brushing against my forehead, almost as if they were trying to sweep away the ugliness that was imprinted there. I quieted, staying fetal on the floor, eyes closed, heart beating like a trapped hummingbird inside my chest. I could feel Oliver sitting inches from my head.
    “Why are you crying, Elliot?”
    “I am so, so sorry, Oliver.” Each word was ripped from my gut. Tears streamed down my face.
    “Why are you sorry?”
    I heard the scraping of a chair and feet pounding against the wooden floor. The contents of someone’s stomach emptied into a nearby garbage can. I cringed. My own stomach lurched wildly. Maybe if I’d reacted so strongly to someone else’s Delves when I was a First or Second Timer, I wouldn’t be lying here on the floor right now.
    “Elliot, why are you sorry?”
    The heaving had stopped and everyone in the room was deathly silent. I couldn’t hear brushed up againsthiI bit my lip another sound besides the velvet lilt of Oliver’s words. I craved the sight of his face, was desperate to see the same kindness that was in his voice, but the urge to hide from the rest of