Freezing People is (Not) Easy Read Online Free Page A

I knew “you couldn’t hit what you couldn’t catch.” I vowed that fat fuck would never catch me again.
    If I had planned ahead, I probably would’ve gone home and gotten some food and an extra shirt before running away, but I knew that any hesitation, any procrastination, would only lead to additional humiliation. I stopped for a moment on the shoulder of the road on this narrow isthmus, breathing hard and looking at the road ahead and at Massachusetts Bay at both sides. In that moment, my problems transformed from getting beaten to death to starving to death. Where would I eat and sleep? I was penniless, so I hitchhiked to Long Island. I was glad I had kept Elaine secret from my parents. She didn’t need gangsters showing up on her doorstep, scaring her mother, and dragging her into Big John’s underworld.
    I threw pebbles at Elaine’s window until I caught her attention. Thinking it was the neighborhood boys, she was about to yell until she saw me. She grabbed her jacket, threw a leash on the dog, and was out the door twenty seconds later. Half a block from her house in front of a creek that ran between two split-level homes, she turned to me. Tears welled in her eyes.
    â€œOh, Bobby! What happened?” She brought her hand to my chin, caressing me so carefully, then she leaned in and blew soft kisses.
    I had a thousand different feelings in that moment. I was ecstatic to be free, exhausted, pissed that my so-called father had created this fucked-up life for me, and passionately crazy about this girl before me. All those emotions combined into a droll response. “Big John happened.”
    She brought out a lace handkerchief from her pocket, dipped it in the creek water, and wiped away the blood on my chin, elbows, shins, and countless other nicks. Biting her lip so that it almost bled too, she stayed silent for a long time, nursing all my Big John scars and the scrapes from my collision with the road.
    â€œWhat will you do now?” she finally asked.
    I grabbed her hands as the dog, her excuse to escape the house, nipped at my ankles, “I’m not going back. I’m a man now, and I’ll act as such.”
    â€œWhere will you stay?”
    I didn’t want her to worry, so I lied. “Oh, I have some old friends from the neighborhood. Their parents aren’t around. I won’t have any problems.”
    She nodded and hugged me for a long time, trying to make all the hurt go away. Off in the distance, we saw the front door of her house open and we had to say good-bye. She quickly kissed me and was gone.
    God, I loved Elaine. I lived only for the moments I could spend with her. She kept me sane and grounded, and she gave me all the money she had; it was enough to keep me alive as I frantically looked for work. She went without lunch and the nice new things she could have bought with her babysitting money. She snuck me sandwiches and fruit, and I slipped into her house for a quick shower when her parents were working. Even then I had to be careful; her two annoying brothers would snitch to their parents if they knew. I wondered if her brother Tommy ever missed a couple shirts and great pair of jeans. I felt awful about asking Elaine for those favors, but during those days she taught me so much about love, caring, and unconditional giving—lessons I should have learned from my parents. I wanted to take care of her, protect her, and comfort her, not the other way around.
    The job search wasn’t going well; since I looked too young, no one wanted to hire me. For the first two months, I snuck into cars to catch a few hours of restless sleep in the backseat, always scared I would get caught.
    One frigid night spent shivering and rubbing my numbed hands and feet convinced me I needed another way to sleep; only the six inches of snow shrouding the car that night saved me from frostbite. So afterwards I spent the fifteen cents I received daily from Elaine and