Who I Kissed Read Online Free PDF

blubbering mess.
    Horrible sounds emanate from a deep, dark place inside me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…Daddy…Oh my God. I killed him.”
    My dad murmurs soft words that make no sense. A part of me recognizes how stiff my dad’s arms are, but he’s holding me close and not letting go, even as I soak his golf shirt with my groaning and weeping. I’m certain I’ll never be able to stop. I rock against him, unable to process the horror of what I’ve done.
    Time must pass, but instead of dying, like I should, I start to breathe a little more slowly. My guttural sounds turn to normal sobs. My dad tries to untangle himself, but I cling to him, terrified to be alone. He gently but firmly removes my arms from his.
    “I’ll be right back,” he says. “Stay here.”
    I curl into a ball on the couch and squeeze my eyes together. I don’t want to see or to hear anything. I don’t want thoughts or images in my head. A notion formulates in my brain. I want my mommy. Oh God. I want my mom more than I’ve ever wanted her in my life.
    I start another whimpering sound, but it’s almost a song of sorrow that I hum to keep myself sane on some primitive level.
    Dad’s footsteps return and then he crouches down beside me. “Butterfly?”
    I open my eyes, and he holds out his hand, flat. In the middle of his palm is an oval blue pill. In his other hand is a glass of water.
    “Take it,” he commands, holding the pill closer to me.
    I don’t have the wits to question his order. I don’t ask what the pill is or protest. I can only sit up and obey. Someone needs to tell me what to do. I place the pill on my tongue, take the glass of water and swallow it down. Bitterness taints my taste buds.
    Dad holds out his hand again, but this time it’s empty. I recognize that I’m expected to take it. I slip my smaller hand inside and he tugs me up. He puts his other hand under my legs and swoops me up, and my arms wind around his neck. He walks slowly, carrying me, climbing the stairs with me, taking me down the hallway to my bedroom like I’m a three-year-old, not a five-foot-eight seventeen-year-old who weighs almost 130 pounds.
    He grunts a little and kicks open my bedroom door. He has to step over a pile of clothes before he can plop me gently down on my bed. I immediately roll away from him and curl into a ball, but instead of tight I’m almost limp. My brain is black and emotionally spent. I’m so exhausted it feels like I’m sinking inside my head.
    Dad sits on the bed, and his weight moves me a little closer to him. He strokes my hair the way he did when I was a little girl.
    The pill is already working. I’m beginning to drift, and I welcome the escape with only a tiny level of awareness.
    “Why, Sammy?” he whispers. “Why were you kissing a boy you didn’t even know?’
    I don’t answer him. I’m so tired. But a lingering thought survives the weariness and travels through the dark. It goes deep and imprints on my already contrite soul.
    “Why did Mom die?” I whisper.
    How can I possibly get through this without a mother? Maybe with her guidance I wouldn’t have gone around kissing boys I barely knew for attention.
    He doesn’t say anything, and the drugs make my brain hazier. As I close my eyes and succumb to darkness, one last coherent thought flits through my head:
    I wish I could join her.
    My mom.



chapter four
    In theory I understand that I am grieving, but I haven’t wept since Friday night. My insides give me sensory proof that I’m still functioning, but it seems likely that while I was drugged my organs were replaced with robot parts. Everything works the way it’s supposed to. My heart beats. My lungs expand and contract. But it’s like I’m hollow or watching a movie about someone else. None of this feels real. I can’t break out of the trance.
    I lie in my bed and think about poking something sharp into my skin. To see if it will hurt, to see if I’ll bleed, to test whether I’m still