My Stupid Girl Read Online Free Page A

had to be a trap door in this car somewhere. Didn’t mobsters drive
Cadillacs?
    She let her arm fall and her head went down
a little. I felt bad for refusing her. It wouldn't have hurt to shake the
girl’s hand, it’s not like she didn’t deserve it or anything. She was just
trying to be nice, and besides, she was one of the only people at school who
never looked at me like I was a walking plague. I tried taking my hand out of
my blanket-cage but apparently I had succeeded in disappearing. She looked back
up at me, eyebrows lifted hopefully, when I moved. Stupid down-comforter
cocoon.
    I felt the cloth that was wrapped around my
neck and face move slightly, and then there was pressure on the top of my head.
Immediately, I stopped moving, afraid of what was happening. I looked over and
saw that her bare arm was completely out of her blankets. The girl put her
fingers through the back of my hair and stopped at the base of my neck. I was
torn between snapping at her fingers like a wild turkey or completely melting
through the non-existent trapdoor in this non-Mob car.  
    "Thank you," she said again,
looking straight at me, forehead bent toward me. And she gave my neck the
slightest pull for emphasis. This chick would not allow herself to be ignored
or shrugged off. My throat had mysteriously lost all moisture, so I just nodded
to her. It was either accept her thanks or get strangled, apparently.
    She tucked back into her blanket, closed
her eyes and put her head back against the seat. I felt myself being drawn to
her. She didn't shy away from the way I looked, or flinch when she touched me.
I felt a wall around a little room in my heart beginning to collapse; I tried
to mentally reconstruct it but it continued to crumble. This was the most
absurd thing that could ever happen to someone like me. I save some beautiful
girl from drowning in a frozen lake, with a crowd of well-meaning people
looking on (doing nothing), and then she turns around and cuts through every
mental defense I’d built over years in, like, two seconds. Soulful eyes and the
threat of death by strangulation are my kryptonite, I guess.
    "Yeah, you’re welcome," I said
quietly as the Caddy slid into the ER parking lot.
    She kept her eyes closed, but smiled.
     
     
     
     
    2. IT’S A PARTY
     
    Life is funny.
    Not haha funny but
what-is-happening-to-me-right-now kind of funny.
    We were carried into the emergency room
like two newborns, bright red and swaddled in blankets. They hooked the two of
us up to heart monitors in the same room, on two hospital beds separated by a
thin curtain. They put these disgusting gray heated blankets on us, wool socks,
and great big hospital-issued beanies. We had heating pads under our armpits,
our knees and on our feet. I was waiting for someone to walk up to me with a
cup of hot chocolate.
    A husky woman with little smile-wrinkles
fanning out from the corner of both eyes walked in with a small white box in
her hand, singing, “let’s get those temps!” I was in the bed closest to the
door so she stopped hesitantly in front of me. I opened my mouth and looked
away, ready for the “don’t talk, keep it under your tongue” spiel, but she
recoiled when she saw me which made me snap my mouth shut like an irritated
rattle snake. Denied.
    "No, Hun, it’s an ear
thermometer," she smiled at me for a second and then walked around the
bed, to my left ear, the side with less hair in her way. I heard a little
giggle from the other side of the curtain. Nice. I jump into a freezing lake to
save the girl’s life and she laughs at me.
    "Okay sweetie pie, rate how you’re
doing for me, on a scale from one to ten. One is the worst, ten is the best.”
She busied herself by checking monitors and scribbling in my chart while she
spoke.
    "I feel fine," I answered her.
    "What’s your number dear?" She
still didn’t look at me. A part of me seriously wanted to mess with her.
"How can you put a number on fine? It means I’m feeling