Last Train to Babylon Read Online Free

the tray of coffee on his forearm, and I’m still not sure if I’ll bother telling him about the call. But halfway through breakfast, I pull out the insides of my bagel and I tell him, without any sign of emotion, how she’s dead, how she probably killed herself.
    He stands up to hug me. “It’s fine,” I say, pressing my palms out in front of me. “We weren’t close.” He looks at me kind of funny and sits back down on the edge of the couch. “I don’t even think I’m going home for the funeral,” I say. “I don’t want to anyway. It’s just going to be miserable.” This wasn’t entirely true. I decided moments before that I’d at least go home for the week, if only to appease Karen and not look like a total asshole. I still wasn’t sure about the funeral. That part was true.
    â€œDo what you have to do,” he says. He cocks his eyebrow and bites down into his sesame-seed bagel.
    â€œWhat?” I put my own bagel on the coffee table and stare him down. He shrugs. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
    24
    â€œNothing,” he says. He’s doing that thing where he shakes his head and sort of smiles, but only because he doesn’t want to ruffle me up. But after a moment of silence, he at least attempts to say what he means, through a mouthful of bagel and cream cheese. It’s gross, and I want to tell him to keep his mouth shut when he chews, but instead I just wait for him to finish his thought. It’s always better to just get it over with. “I just think you should probably go, is all.” He won’t look me in the eye. Instead, he stares intently at the bagel in his hands and chews with unnecessary focus. “It’s the right thing to do.”
    The Right Thing.
    â€œWell, Karen basically said I’m a heartless bitch if I don’t go home; so I guess I don’t have a choice.” I take a sip of my coffee and wait for him to interject, to tell me it’s okay, that I could never be a heartless bitch even if I tried, that I always have a choice.
    But he doesn’t.
    â€œYour mom’s kind of right,” he says.
    I pinch the bridge of my nose with my thumb and forefinger and close my eyes. I really can’t deal with this all right now. The girl is a corpse and she still somehow manages to fuck up my Sunday.
    I stare down at my half-eaten bagel.
    I think she’s cute.
    I don’t know, I guess. Cute, but kind of chubby.
    I wrap up the rest of my bagel and stuff it back into the paper bag with the rest of the trash.
    I can already imagine the sideshow that will be Rachel’s funeral: her mother, weeping over a white veneer casket; her little sister, Chloe—who’s got to be about sixteen now—chain-smoking in the parking lot; her stepfather, Jeff, leering at me from a shadowy corner.
    I can feel it all. The uncomfortable silence when I walk into the church; all eyes on me, the best friend, the one she left behind; and a cosmic cloud of nauseating smells: flowers, too much perfume, and incense, the Catholic kind.
    25
    Ms. Price, our second-grade teacher, she’ll be there for sure, and she’ll pull me into her bony arms and tell me what a lovely young woman I’ve turned out to be, what a shame it was that we hadn’t stayed close, how maybe then Rachel would still be alive. There would be hugs—a whole variety of them. Lingering embraces, one-arm-over-the-shoulder hugs, full-body hugs. I hate them all equally.
    Ally and the rest of the old Seaport gang will be there, too, huddling in a corner, holding each other in a disgusting sob fest, stopping only to snap perfectly posed Instagram shots to show off their coordinated outfits—# funeralchic. There’ll be Eric Robbins, clad in his marine uniform, the guests shaking his hand, thanking him for doing his part for this great country. Just the thought of it sends my stomach spinning and