Who I Kissed Read Online Free PDF Page B

alive. I don’t, though. For one, because moving means effort. Two, because I’m afraid if start bleeding that I won’t stop myself from draining all life from my body. Or worse, that I will.
    I ignore my cell phone. Dad tells me Clair and Aunt Allie are texting and emailing frantically. Taylor too. He brought the phone to my room and it quickly ran out of juice. I leave it dead on my dresser and ignore the landline. Taylor calls, and Aunt Allie persists longer, but in spite of knowing how much she’ll persevere, I don’t want to talk even to her.
    Monday morning is the first time I’ve missed a swim practice except for when I’ve been too sick to move and once when I pulled my hamstring. I ignore my dad and refuse to budge from my bed for the 5:00 a.m. swim. He stands in the hallway outside my room for a while looking confused and unsure of what to do.
    “What’s the matter, Dad?” I say in a flat voice. “You look like someone died.”
    “Oh, Sam,” he says and comes in and sits on my bed, asking over and over if he should stay home with me. I shake my head and tell him to go to work. Finally he pats me on the head and says he’ll leave me for a few hours but tells me to call if I need him. Clearly he’s out of his league here. But so am I.
    Hours later when he gets home, he comes directly to my room. I’ve become an extension of my bed. My hair is unbrushed, my teeth are still filmy. I’ve been up to use the bathroom, but other than that I’ve drifted in and out of sleep and, between naps, stared at the ceiling. I know a lot about my bedroom ceiling. The stains. The spider web in each corner.
    “Clair called me at work,” Dad says.
    Nothing about that makes me react. “She offered to take you to a grief counselor. To go with you.” I roll over on my side, so my back is facing him.
    “But I made an appointment for you myself. Just you. I mean, I can in go with you if you want. But Clair shouldn’t have to take you.”
    It sounds like he’s asking me a question. If I do want Clair to take me. I can’t deal with his uncertainty and contemplate my wall. Clair is from an old world. One I can barely remember.
    “I got you in right away,” he says. “Wednesday morning. The doctor made a special arrangement to get you in.”
    “Lucky him,” I mumble to my wall. “I’m sure I’ll be fascinating.”
    “Sam.” He doesn’t move from the end of my bed.
    I don’t answer, but I sense him staring at me. A sigh drifts in the air until he leaves. I flip onto my back again, and a few minutes later Dad walks in with a sandwich and some snap peas on a plate.
    “Can you eat something?” He hands me the plate, and I take it and place it on top of the messy sheets bunched up on the bed.
    “Sammy,” he says. His voice cracks. “I can’t stand to see you like this.”
    I don’t answer. There’s no other way to see me.
    “I want to help you. Please. Talk to me.”
    The thing he doesn’t realize is that he can’t help me. And because he’s so good at keeping things he doesn’t want to talk about inside, somewhere along the way I developed the same ability.
    “I’ll be fine. Really. I just want to be alone.”
    “I need to do something to fix this.”
    “I know, Daddy.” We look each other in the eyes. I haven’t called him that in a long time.
    “I’m sorry,” he finally says, and his voice is uneven.
    “Did you know that the funeral is tomorrow?” I ask, staring at the flat peas on the plate.
    “I know,” he says.
    I pull a loose thread on my comforter. “Do you think I should go?”
    “Do you want to?”
    No. Yes. No. I can’t imagine which scenario is worse. “I don’t know.” I look up at his face. The familiar crooked nose. The thinning brown hair that doesn’t take away from his still handsome face. Age is being kind to him.
    “I understand.” He clears his throat. “But it might be good to have closure. Say goodbye. Let me know, okay? I’ll go with you.”
    He’s never