Grace Lost Read Online Free

covered in a sheer beige lace
curtain.  It wasn’t very large, so searching didn’t take long.  I
opened the small under-the-sink cabinet and scavenged seven rolls of generic
brand toilet paper.  I hadn’t thought about how to carry it all, so I left
the rolls of soft paper on the floor by the door and walked across the hall to
Boggs’ bedroom.  I thought it was silly that in his twenties he still
slept in a twin-sized bed with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.  I
walked to the bed and took his pillow in my hands.  I slipped the case off
to use as a sack for what I had pillaged.  Thinking twice, I took the
pillow with me as well.  On his desk sat a 5x7 photo of his parents and
him when he graduated from high school.  The sun was shining in the
picture, and his parents both had grins full of pride at their only child
getting his diploma.  I slipped it, frame and all, into the empty pillow
case and returned to the hallway to gather the toilet paper.  I tucked the
rolls into the make-shift sack, and arranged the frame between the quilted
squares for protection.  I knew deep down I wouldn’t have a chance to
return to the comfort of my own home.  There would be no photos for me,
nothing but the faded memories in my mind.
    Feeling as if I was intruding, I
continued down the hall to Mr. and Mrs. Boggs’ bedroom.  I was only
looking for one more pillow , but they all sat on the
bed under a large window that overlooked the street.  I dared risk going
for it, dropping to my knees.  I crawled the few feet to the king sized
bed covered in down and satin.  Boggs had always said his mother was
unnecessarily extravagant.  I took a smallish pillow from a pile of about
ten, and dared to peek outside through the window.  The car fire down the
street had begun to fade.  I glanced toward the Robinson’s house and saw
that Nicole Park had moved.  She was no longer lying in the grass, but was
now sitting next to a fire hydrant.  One of her legs was bent at an
unnatural angle and underneath her.  In her remaining hand she held part
of a cat. It laid limp, blood dripping from what remained of its carcass. 
She chewed sloppily, the bloody mess splattering.  I turned away, beer and
ice cream fighting to see the light of day once again. 
    Still clinging to the pillow, I
crawled along the floor until I was safely out of sight and in the
hallway.  I returned to the bathroom and rifled through the medicine
cabinet.  I added acetaminophen and ibuprofen to the pillow case, as well
as a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.  I studied my own image in the mirror,
barely recognizing myself.  My hair was snarled, my face dirty, and I
looked afraid.
    I used my hair tie to close the
pillow case and made one last trip to Boggs’ room, where I found a pair of
running shorts and slipped them on.  I cinched the waist with the built in
tie common to such shorts, and walked back downstairs to join Boggs.
     
    When I walked into the kitchen,
Boggs was studying an atlas.  He looked up.
    “Nice shorts, Zoe.”
    “Hope you don’t mind,” was all I
said as I set the stuffed pillow case and both pillows on the table next to the
first aid kit.
    “I’ll throw those in the
car.  And no, I don’t mind.”   He got up and carried the load to
the garage.  While he was gone I used the kitchen sink to wet a hand
towel, and wiped my face and arms.  I braided my dirty hair behind my
head, and tied it with a rubber band from a collection that Mrs. Boggs kept in
a small drawer below the microwave.
    Boggs returned from his task in
the garage.  “It’s all packed.”
    We sat together at the kitchen
table drinking the Coors I had left on the counter.  We hunched over the
atlas, mapping a route.  The plan was to head south, using smaller roads
to shadow the Interstate.  If Highway 2 was clear, we’d follow it east
toward the foothills.  I had never been good with using maps, and Boggs
was well aware of that from past road trips we had