What Happens Next Read Online Free PDF

swing.
    “Nah, dinner ran late, and I had trouble finding it,” I say.
    All the moisture in my mouth funnels directly down into my palms. It’s twenty-nine degrees outside, and my exposed hands are dripping with sweat. I put them in my pockets before the sweat starts hardening into sweat-cicles.
    “So what happened to the party? Where is everyone?” I ask.
    “Ah, my friend’s uncle’s flight got canceled because of the snow in Denver and he ended up staying here an extra night. We had to shit-can it. They went to The Owl’s Nest for a drink. You want to go meet them?”
    He wants to go for a drink. At a bar. Well, he’s not nineteen or twenty. And I’m not even old enough for an R movie yet, sooo…
    “No, I probably should just get back then.”
    Damn. What a bust.
    “Well, come in for a little. We can hang out—watch a movie or something lame like that.”
    Ugh. It’s time to end the charade. It’s not fair to lie anymore, pretend to be something I’m not.
    “Um, look,” I say, sighing. “I should probably tell you something. I probably should have told you yesterday, but, I don’t know, I just didn’t. Anyhow—”
    I pause and look at his stunning face one last time before breaking the news. He has the bluest eyes.
    “What?” he says.
    I open my mouth and try to speak, but can’t.
    “Hey, you’re scaring me,” he says. “Are you an escaped convict? A serial killer or something?”
    I laugh weakly.
    “No, I’m not a serial killer. Not that I know of, anyway.”
    “Then it can’t be that bad.”
    I shift in my seat and then finally blurt it out: “I’m only sixteen. I’m in high school.”
    I bite my lower lip and looked up timidly through a spiral of hair. He says nothing for what seems like a long time.
    “Is that it?”
    “Yeah. But I’ll be seventeen in July,” I offer.
    He looks at me a second longer and then busts out laughing. I sigh. His laughter is a good sign. At least he doesn’t hate me for deceiving him. Even if he tells me to get lost, it’s a relief to get it over with.
    “But it’s just a couple of years, that’s nothing,” he says, laughing.
    He’s only eighteen, maybe a young nineteen.
    I laugh out loud. Really hard. I cover my mouth and try to stifle the Incomparable Sid Murphy Cackling Guffaw.
    Then I stop short.
    “But the bar? I mean, if you’re only nineteen—”
    “Almost nineteen,” he says, raising a finger. “Never heard of a fake ID?”
    Duh, Sid.
    “Ahhhh. The fake ID,” I say.
    Whew. Okay, just two years. This is good. Great, even. God, what a load off. He gets up and opens the front door, stretching an arm out for me to go in.
    “Walk into my parlor, mademoiselle. I think Law & Order is about to start.”
    And then he finally remarks on my hair. He didn’t mention it in all the hours that we spent skiing together. He doesn’t give me the compliment directly but says it in kind of a way that comes across as thinking out loud. While I am walking past him, he gently takes a coil of my hair between his thumb and finger and when it is stretched to the limit, he releases it, and back it springs.
    “Man. Spectacular,” he says. “These things, they go on forever.”
    And in I go.
    The love of my young life following behind me.

4
    I sit bolt upright, startled with that feeling of being displaced. I should be looking at a poster of Paul McCartney in his twenties or a framed picture of me, my mom, and my little brother fishing off Kelleys Island. Instead, I am staring at an unfamiliar painting of a winter scene. A giant buck with thorny antlers looks down on me with caramel-yellow eyes.
    I look around, disoriented.
    I’m in someone’s bedroom, in someone’s bed, and I don’t know how I got here. Then I remember and it all comes crashing down in a thousand jagged pieces. I jerk back the covers, relieved to see that all of my clothes are still on. The clock on the nightstand says seven a.m. The bus leaves in an hour.
    I call out, my throat