Finding Mary Jane Read Online Free Page A

divorce. And even that went pretty smoothly. It’s naive to feel that your house will never burn down and that safe words are pointless, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking that way.
    The first night Ben didn’t come home wasn’t anything to worry about. I’d left the lights on out of fear of being alone in the house, but besides that I had fallen asleep with no problems. All my thoughts were filled with my insane crush on Bluntz so I barely had room in my mind to wonder why my brother wasn’t home.
    The second night Ben didn’t come home, well, that’s when the rock settled into my stomach. All of my attempts to call him went straight to voicemail. I got it, that he was heartbroken and sad and all that, but why did he want to be away from home? From me?
    Now, five miserable days later, I sit under the oak tree in the back yard as the sun sets behind a row of houses to my right. I know Ben won’t magically show up at our childhood meeting place, but I don’t like being in the house anymore. I’ve even turned down hanging out with Jill because I’m afraid if I leave the house for even a minute, I might miss Ben. Mom would demand that I come home if she knew I was alone, so I’ve been avoiding her, too.
    For five whole days I’ve eaten cereal and watched the big TV and listened for Ben’s car pulling into the driveway. This house feels like a prison. I feel like a little old lady who obsessively worries about everything. Ben is eighteen and capable of running his own life.
    I hope he isn’t doing drugs wherever he’s hiding.
    But he probably is.
    I’ve pretty much realized that Marla was the catalyst to Ben’s new drug habit. She worked at a smoke shop after all, and had Ben wrapped around her finger. He must have done it just to feel cool and fit in with her crowd. And now that she is gone, I know Ben is sad about it but hopefully he can heal and go back to normal.
    Although the bag of joints he had when I last saw him worry me.
    I really want Ben to come home.
     
     
    I wake up around two in the morning in the living room, having passed out on the couch. An infomercial on TV advertises the shockingly low price of some kitchen appliance that no one will ever actually use. And if you call now, you can get two of them for the price of one. I check my phone on the coffee table: zero missed calls, zero new messages.
    Because I’m so exhausted and not thinking clearly, I get this crazy idea that maybe the explanation for Ben’s absence is in his room, waiting for me to discover it with a bit of snooping. He’s been gone all week so maybe he was at YMCA camp or a convention for…I don’t know—stuff. Yeah, that could be it.
    I know I sound crazy. I don’t care.
    I skip up the stairs, still disoriented from having been asleep and almost slam my shoulder into the wall as I round the hallway to Ben’s room. It reeks in here even worse than usual.
    His desk is empty, devoid of any flyers for week long extravaganzas. There are no clues to tell me where he has gone. The only clue I can find in here is incredibly bad: his cell phone charger plugged in by the nightstand.
    If Ben had planned a trip, he would have taken that. He probably would have taken his debit card from the nightstand too.
    I plop on his bed and sink my head into his pillow. It has a touch of that skunk smell, but mostly smells like him. Pounding my fists on the pillow, I say to no one, “Where are you?”
    There is a crumpling sound, and I reach under the pillow, finding a ball of paper. It is a folded piece of notebook paper that’s been crumpled up. My heart races. It’s the letter. The letter. It’s none of my business but I have to know what Marla had written that was so cruel it drove Ben to binge on weed and then disappear.
    Slowly, I sit up in bed and unfold the note.
     
     
    I’m sorry it has to be this way, but now that you know the truth you can at least see why we can’t be together. I’m not covering for your ass anymore,