Nothing Real Volume 1 Read Online Free

I heard Lou Reed I thought about how bad the seventies must have sucked, and I sort of felt bad for my parents. The guy sings like the undead.
    â€œCome sit,” he says, and pats the bed. He still has just socks on, and I want to say, Shoes or nothing. I want him to know how deadly this is.
    â€œI can’t stay long,” I say, taking a swig of beer.
    â€œWhat’s that about?” he says.
    I want to leave before any of the songs with Nico come on.
    â€œI have to get up early tomorrow,” I tell him, and it’s not a lie. “I’m going with Jessica to White Plains and we have to be there by ten.” I’m getting my hair cut, but I don’t tell him. Jessica knows a girl who’ll do the type of cut that’s almost shaved on one side. She’ll do it in her apartment, so we don’t have to pay the salon price.
    The thought of the haircut makes me happy enough to sit downand make out, even though a Nico song comes on. Kev makes little murmuring sounds, and I regret the day I started all this. When I told Jess I thought I liked Kev, she’d said, “Now there’s some low-hanging fruit.” It took me a while to figure out what she meant.
    Jess has one of those bedroom sets where everything matches. It’s all white with gold at the edges. She sits cross-legged on her bed with badass, dyed black hair and a pair of jeans so tight at the ankle I don’t know how she got her feet in. I feel better being there than at my house. My parents went to take Kate, my sister, to look at two colleges in Connecticut, but I said no, since I’d have to change my life yesterday to get in to either of them.
    â€œI can’t break up with Kev,” I tell Jess.
    â€œYeah?” Jess says. “Why should you?” She doesn’t look up from the book she’s underlining. I am losing the war for Jess’s attention to Dickens.
    â€œI should be able to, is the point,” I say.
    â€œI guess you’ve gotten used to him,” Jess says.
    â€œUsed to Kev is like being used to peanut butter on white bread.”
    â€œYum.”
    â€œUsed to Kev is like drinking wine spritzers.” Jess sticks out her tongue.
    â€œUsed to Kev is like staying home and going to community college.”
    â€œYou are not going to community college. You are going to Syracuse, or UMass, or that crunchy place near Amherst.”
    I want to tell her I’m not sure. I’m not like her. I have the same Dickens paper due Monday, but who here is writing, and who is whining? Jess is like my sister, Kate. They’re good in a way I want to be, but can’t.
    â€œI don’t know,” I say, and I can feel the words getting twisted up. Jess looks at me.
    â€œYou really have to shut the fuck up,” she says. “Why don’t you go downstairs and get us a sandwich? If you can’t cope with yourself, at least make yourself useful.”
    When I go down to the kitchen, Jess’s brother, Alan, is at the kitchen table with his legs up, so it’s difficult not to see right up his baggy-ass lacrosse shorts. Alan gives me a look like he’s never seen me before.
    â€œLawn-mower accident?” he asks, then laughs at his own joke. It takes me a minute to get the reference to my hair.
    I ignore him, and get the peanut butter and bread. Jess’s house is the opposite of Kev’s—someone’s always in the kitchen at Jess’s and the food is all in plastic.
    â€œHey, make me one of those while you’re at it, babe.” Alan is the kind of guy who calls you things like chick and babe, just to make sure you know he’s an asshole.
    When I’m done, I put Alan’s sandwich on the table on top of a piece of paper towel, and then instead of taking Jess hers, I sit down at the table with Alan.
    â€œSo what’s the good news?” Alan wants to know. He’s talking with his mouth full, and I can see his right nut up his