Painted Boots Read Online Free Page B

the other, my thumbs entwined.  I don’t know why I told him.  I haven’t told anyone yet.  Not even Gwen.  He’ll do something awkward now, like my friends in Portland did.
    Kyle moves close and wraps his arm around my shoulders.  “I’m sorry you lost your mom,” he whispers into my hair.
    I look across the parking lot.  Unwanted tears blur my view into a kaleidoscope of gray and black, red and white.  I don’t want to cry over Mom.  I mean, it doesn’t change anything.  It won’t bring her back.  But something, maybe Kyle’s closeness or the cozy silence of his truck, amplifies my feelings.
    A choking sob escapes me .
    K yle rests his head against mine.  He works his fingers between my hands until we’re holding hands, again.  But my thoughts are far from him now, in Portland, taking me down the stairs and into our kitchen.
    W here was I, in the rush of that morning, when Mom called out I’ll drop you, I need the car ?  She joked with Dad as I buttered my toast—I remember that.  She poured herself coffee as I gulped down my juice.  She set her mug, full and steaming, on the counter then followed me to the car.  I’ll add the cream and sugar when I get back, she’d said.
    On the way to school we had talked about the summer road trip I’d planned with my friends.  Mom had launched into her lecture on safe sex and birth control and the burden of incurable disease.
    I’d answered her with eye-rolls.  I already knew about that stuff and that morning, for some reason, I didn’t want to hear it again.  I wanted out.  I wanted my day!  I wanted it so much that as we neared the school building I had opened my car door.  Mom braked hard; the tires skidded; she yelled Don’t do that, sweet!   But I was already in motion—grabbing my purse and books and jumping to the curb.  I shut the door as she said, Love you, baby.  See you at three .  I don’t remember what I was thinking at that moment.
    I hope it was Love you, too .
    M y day had just begun when Dad appeared—his face like ash—and pulled me from second period calc.  At Portland Providence they put us in a little room, one with a view.  Time had no meaning as Dad and I sat there, staring at nothing, holding hands and listening to hospital sounds.  When the doctor came in I jumped.  He said, “The crash killed her instantly.”  He said, “She’s too badly burned for you to see.”  He said, “I’m very sorry.”  He touched my head; he shook Dad’s hand.  He left a thin packet of papers on a chair seat.  Then he was gone.
    I pull free of Kyle, rest my elbows on my knees, and rake my fingers through my hair.  That day!  There’s a lot I don’t recall about coming home from the hospital. I mean, I took a sleeping pill.  But I remember Mom’s coffee.  It was there, still on the counter, cold and black.  That coffee will wait for her forever in my dreams.
    I wrap my arms around my bo dy and rock myself.
    Kyle takes hold of my shoulders, twisting me until he’s got me cradled against his chest.  I let him hold me while I out-of-control sob.  He rubs my back and whispers, “I’ve got you, girl.  I’ve got you.”
    I cry even harder.   Kyle pulls a green bandana from somewhere, a pocket, maybe, and lays it across my thigh.
    If anyone had told me, five short months ago when Mom was still alive, that I’d be huddled in a vintage Chevy and taking comfort from a teenaged cowboy I hardly know, I would have rolled my eyes.  It would have seemed absurd.  But nothing feels strange about this moment.  The truck shudders in a gust of wind and Kyle smoothes the tears from my cheek.  Dry leaves dance into the sky and I work my arm behind his back, just to be closer.  The world keeps right on spinning, same as ever.  Except now Kyle and I are clinging to each other as though we were the only two people left to notice.
    “I was late for school,” I say after a while, my voice high and nasally.  “I missed my