Loonglow Read Online Free Page B

faster than before, but Louey followed without thinking. She had bellowed Mia’s name in a public place; obviously all rational rules had ceased to apply. She took deep breaths; she took shallow breaths. Why she had not shriveled into a wilted mass of shame by this point was unclear. She seemed to be on some sort of automatic pilot, as on Mia went, wafting through the crowded underground of New York.
    The next few cars were dim, their broken doors not quite closed; windows half open, fans stalled and silent: the external equivalent of Louey’s stifling, heart-pounding, clammy self. Now she couldn’t bring herself to utter a word, and they traveled together in silence through the darkened train.
    Without warning, Louey found herself narrowing the distance between them at an alarming rate. They were in the last car, she realized, at the back of the train. Mia was trapped. Pressing herself against the tiny window, Mia seemed to be imagining herself far, far down the tunnel, safe, away from Louey. The back of her head made one last plea for mercy.
    Louey stopped just inches from her, inhaling the scent which, long since faded from memory no matter how she’d strained to recall it, now filled her senses. Suddenly shy, she struggled for the perfect thing to say to bring Mia crashing back into her arms.
    â€œThis the Number 2?” Someone jostled her, touching her shoulder. Louey turned in panic, realizing that the doors had opened and the train had stopped inside a station. (From the corner of her eye she saw Mia’s wild, dark hair, calling to be ravished.)
    â€œI have no idea,” Louey said desperately; this was a lie, she knew, if only she could shake herself down for the information. But all she could concentrate on was Mia. She closed her eyes. Mia was wearing a fuzzy short-sleeved sweater Louey had given her, which bared her vulnerable elbows; Louey wanted nothing more than to pull them around her. Mia’s skirt was white, snaked on tightly over her hips and slit up the side to bare inexcusably perfect legs. Louey was staring at her now, frozen, inhaling. If she had any sense, she’d bolt. What was she doing here? She reached out her hand to rest it on Mia’s shoulder.
    Mia turned. A pair of unfamiliar glasses gave Louey’s heart a jolt as her eyes pored over a stranger’s face. Then the woman beamed at her. Mia. Louey smiled weakly.
    â€œHey,” Mia said. She removed the tiny headphones which a heretofore undiagnosed mental defect had caused Louey to overlook. “How the hell are you, girl?”
    â€œFine,” Louey said, not mentioning that if Mia kept up that grinning Louey was going to have to get off the train. “How have you been?” The roaring in her ears prevented her from absorbing Mia’s answer. After all this time, Mia? She felt feverish. Her teeth ached. Where were her knees?
    â€œWell, see you in another twenty,” Mia was suddenly saying. Before Louey knew it, Mia was moving through the doors of the train, which (oblivious to Louey’s internal combustion) had reached another station and stopped once again. Louey stood frozen as the doors closed behind Mia and the train started with a lurch.
    Louey stared at the glazed windows. There was no telling where she was, or if she should have gotten off the train hours ago. She could feel the rest of the car watching her, the obvious victim, forming their own conclusions. Grabbing on to a strap, she waited to see what the next stop would be, hanging on for life.

When Louisa Mercer was six years old, her mother found her sitting among a jumble of torn papers with tears streaming from her eyes. When Meredith asked what was the matter, Louey looked up into her mother’s anxious face and announced that she was going to quit drawing forever. Meredith Mercer put a hand on her daughter’s heated cheek and soothed the hair off her damp forehead as she told the little girl, “You’re