Dreaming of Antigone Read Online Free Page B

taking the bus while Iris’s car waits in the garage for me. So the rare mornings he or Mom are here to drive me, I leap at the chance.
    Riding to school in Craig’s convertible Mercedes is painfully awkward. The vehicle is quiet, but Craig taps his hands on the steering wheel and hums along to nineties boy band music from his Pandora station. Savage Garden, I think. Or maybe Backstreet Boys.
    As he pulls into the drop-off circle, he reaches over and squeezes my wrist gently. “Take care, Andria.”
    I don’t answer, but grab my bag and hop out of the vehicle, more creeped out by his music choices than his touchy-feely-ness. I know he and Mom both think I’m frail and now that I’ve lost my twin I just might be fragile enough to break. As if we were attached like Siamese twins and dependent upon one another. In some ways, we were. But in other ways, we were very separate entities. Sometimes, I feel like I never really knew my sister at all. And now that she’s gone, I won’t ever get the chance.

    There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars . . . small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss

    There’s more poetry on the desk today. I touch the words with my fingers, as if they were braille. Mrs. Davis rambles on at the front of the class about additive inverses. I copy the poem into my notebook, wishing I had something just as beautiful to leave on the desk for my verse-loving friend.
    I don’t have time at lunch to look up the poem, though. I have a unit exam in chemistry tomorrow, so I sit in the courtyard with Trista, cramming. Only she’s more interested in glaring at Thing One, otherwise known as Hank. Her man is flirting on the other side of the courtyard with two sophomores who are wearing Calcifer T-shirts. He has an arm draped around each giggling girl. Alex is sitting at the picnic table beside them, his head down as if he’s taking a nap.
    â€œHey.” I tap Tris’s book with my pen. “Back to Boyle’s law.”
    She flips her book closed. “I’m too pissed to study. That asshole texted me last night and said he missed me.”
    â€œMaybe he was drunk?” I ask. “Or high? You don’t need a loser like him. Find someone who deserves you. Someone who’s sober.”
    She looks at me like I’ve sprouted two heads. “God, Andria. Not everyone who parties is a drug addict.”
    Natalie gasps as she comes up and sits down beside us. “Tris!” she says, horrified.
    Trista stares at her shoes. “Whatever, I know that sounds bitchy, but seriously. We don’t have to stop having fun because Iris couldn’t handle it.”
    I slam my chemistry book shut. I want to ask her if she thought Iris smoked heroin for fun, but Tris won’t understand. She thinks popping pills and drinking on the weekends is innocent fun. She likes to party, but she’s never done hard stuff. Nor has Natalie. At least I don’t think they have.
    Both of them are on the girls’ soccer team. They should be more interested in keeping their bodies healthy, but I don’t bother to point that out.
    I still don’t want to talk about Iris with anyone. And I really don’t think they want to talk about her either. For months, the school looked like a funeral home, with flower wreaths and flower crosses and teddy bears and cards heaped in a growing pile in the front hall. We had counselors come and talk to us. Iris’s teachers and coaches mourned along with us. I had to share my grief with the entire school. And I resented that. And now everyone else besides our dysfunctional group has moved on, and I am left alone to mourn. But I wish I could move on too.
    I’m beginning to think my sister’s perfect life was not so perfect, for her to abandon herself to drugs like that. Why didn’t I see that sooner? I should have noticed something, should have tried to help