Fragments Read Online Free Page A

a kiss. Our lips touch and it’s all sweet. Then he draws back and his nice brown eyes crinkle in a smile.
    Happiness feels like warm honey seeping up my spine. I’ve got everyone I need. My family. My best bud. My boy. That’s when my eyes crack open, sore and swollen, and it all rushes at me like a car going ninety. There’s only me now. And BAM there it is again, the pain. I curl up in a ball, wrapping my arms around myself. It feels worse than ever before, so bad I think it might kill me this time. I wish it would.
    I never knew that sadness was a physical thing before. I’ve learned a lot about it lately. I could get myself a PhD in heartache. My body rocks as waves of grief slam into me but no more tears come. Crying is too easy. Getting up on your feet and living is the hard thing. But what choice do I have?
    I have to find a way to carry on. Somehow. And that’s when I start to think I’ve been getting it all wrong until now. I wanted people around me; friends, maybe a boyfriend too. But everyone I care about gets snatched away from me. It’s love that brings all this pain. I need to learn not to care about anyone. My insides feel as though they are raw and bleeding with all the losses. I have to make myself hard inside. I thought I was so tough but I’m not, not really. There’s only me now.
    I need to find a way to carry on and live.
    Some time later I hear light footsteps outside the stall and the door creaks open again. Ariella’s small white face pokes around the door and a smile lights it up.
    ‘I thought I’d dreamed you up!’ she says, coming in. ‘Or that if you were real, you’d have gone away by now.’
    ‘Still here,’ I say lamely. My eyes sting from the crying and my body aches from sleeping in the damn straw. I feel hollow inside. Scooped out.
    Ariella’s outfit is a bit less out-there today. She’s dressed in cut-off jeans and a silvery T-shirt. Her hair is all matted at the back. She has the Gomez bag with her and starts taking out what looks like a couple of bagels, wrapped in cellophane, and two cartons of orange juice. My mouth instantly waters and, yet again, my body reminds me it needs some fuel. I pick up a carton of orange juice first and pretty much down it in one go.
    ‘Mummy is very sad today,’ she says matter of factly as she hands me one of the bagels, like we’d just been talking about this.
    ‘Oh?’ I say and unwrap the bagel. The smell of peanut butter hits the back of my throat. I’ve always hated it. ‘Um, are they both peanut butter?’
    She doesn’t blink as she swaps bagels with me. I open this one and see jam inside. Phew. I take a huge bite and feel the energy instantly start to come back.
    ‘Daddy gets cross when she cries and says she has to pull herself together,’ continues Ariella.
    ‘Oh dear.’ I don’t know what to say.
    But this doesn’t seem to bother Ariella much. ‘Mummy says if she had some more help around the place she’d be able to get on top of things . But then they fight. I don’t like it when they shout.’ I almost laugh at the grown-up voice she puts on for a minute.
    Her eyes are lowered as she munches on the bagel and we eat in silence for a little while. Then she does that sly thing with her eyes again.
    ‘I didn’t tell anyone about you,’ she says and something makes fear tingle up the back of my neck.
    I put down the almost finished bagel and look at her but she won’t meet my gaze.
    She’s told someone. I know it.
    ‘If you have mentioned me, even by accident, I need to know,’ I say, trying to keep my voice light, although anger and fear rise inside me.

    Her cheeks flood with colour as she finally meets my gaze.
    ‘I didn’t tell Mummy about you!’ she says. ‘I just said I had a secret and that I wouldn’t share it, that’s all. I’m cross with Mummy because she never plays with me any more. What are you doing?’
    I’ve jumped to my feet and am frantically rolling up the sleeping bag. Got to get