Every Little Thing Read Online Free Page A

feel? and Do you think you’ll ever get over it? A spotlight shinning deep into their eyes, hoping to scour out tears for some exclusive, heartbreaking footage .
    THAT SATURDAY MORNING, he and his brother woke to the snapping scent and sizzle of bacon and scrambling eggs. Ryan in the top bunk, Cohen beneath him. Ryan was eight years younger than Cohen and he’d joked once that Nothing says accidental child like having a brother eight years older than you . But they clicked. Got along. By the time Cohen was twenty-five, the mental distance between them was minimal. They’d show up at the same concerts or they’d show up to family dinners wearing almost-matching outfits. They were twins born eight years apart.
    They woke that morning and laid there until Ryan said, “Yes, it’s pretty up here and that bacon smells great, but what are we supposed to do up here for the next thirty-six hours while Mom wraps her head around the fact that you and Dad have broken hearts?”
    Cohen launched himself upright, his feet bouncing off the cold hardwood, “How about a dozen beer this afternoon? We’ll take the boat out, pretend we’re fishing. Or, we could fish. Let’s fish?”
    â€œThere’s no bait, no beer.”
    â€œThere’s a store, not ten minutes down the road.”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œI said there’s a store, not ten minutes down the road.”
    So they bought beer, at the store down the road, and worms for their fishhooks and batteries for the stereo. In the car, Ryan took the lid off the Styrofoam container the worms were in and sniffed it.
    â€œWhat the fuck?”
    â€œSmells great, man. It does.”
    Ryan brought the container to Cohen’s face, “Sniff,” and Cohen took his eyes off the road one second too long. Almost rear-ended someone. Ryan didn’t even react. He put the lid on the container and changed the song on the stereo.
    The walk down to the wharf from their cabin was steep and the path was crowded by lush spruce; their branches were cool against Cohen’s flesh. It smelled like they were walking through an air freshener as they used their arms like machetes to clear a path to their private wharf. The shittiest one on the pond , according to Ryan, but it was enough to tie a boat to or bask on. A splintery thing, if you weren’t wearing shoes. It was a big pond or a little lake—no one in the family knew the difference between the two and they made fun of Cohen, a biologist, for not knowing.
    Cohen stepped into the boat to attach the outboard motor because the slot at the back of the boat had always been too skinny to really take the thing and there was a trick to it that only Cohen and his father knew. Ryan arranged batteries in the stereo ten different ways, swearing as each configuration denied him audio. When the stereo kicked in, shockingly loud,Ryan jumped back like the music had punched him in the guts. The song was up so loud that Cohen could see, but not hear, Ryan laughing at himself.
    The water was always choppy on that pond— bucks you like a bronco —and the pond itself was shaped like a horseshoe, studded with cabins. It took them five minutes to pull out around the bend and get drinking, out of sight of their cabin, because Ryan was still a year shy of nineteen.
    He’d gotten drunker than Cohen had anticipated. His words were mashing together in his mouth and coming out without commas, periods; parts of one word entwined the next. “Dawn worry about, man!”and threw his hand up in the air, “I’m good. But what about the empties. So’s you don’t get busted fer intoxicatin’ a minor?”
    â€œJust, dunk them under water, so they fill and sink.”
    â€œWhat! Litter them, and you a biologist!” he laughed.
    â€œIt’s not bad, really, the bottom dwellers will use them as shelter.”
    â€œThe bottom dwellers ,” he laughed. “You