Perfect Timing Read Online Free Page A

deep-rooted culture insisted on shortening to Bella. A week after arriving, Bella, alternately known as “
that Yankee girl,
” slipped getting off the bus and fell face-first into a red puddle of sludge. If being the new Northerner in a school full of grits-eating,
y’all
-dripping Southerners was bad, doing it covered in mud sealed her fate. Things went from bad to worse, Isabel teased to the point where she was ready to run away back to New Jersey and her father, who had incited the adventure south with their mother.
    Most of that was your standard story of betrayal. Isabel’s father had an affair. She could say that now and without any therapy. Of course, who he had the affair with was the truly stunning part, and the part Isabel couldn’t forgive. Initially, Eric Lang and his new money made grand gestures and a lot of noise about joint custody. It was almost believable. Before his affair, life felt pretty perfect. He destroyed it. Years removed, any fatherly feelings had faded, though he still wrote letters, likely spurred by his analyst’s advice. They went unopened, Isabel taking them and a lighter to the farmhouse. Aidan would watch as envelopes and anger smoldered, Isabel reducing it all to a pile of glowing ash. The ritual drove him crazy, but he’d learned to keep his opinion to himself. Isabel was certain that if Aidan got a letter from his father, it would be an irresistible temptation.
    Inadvertently, fatefully, Aidan diverted her from thoughts of her father and the Catswallow hell in which she was living. Isabel had discovered an abandoned farmhouse a few miles from the trailer park, often going there straight from the bus. While she was sitting on the floor in one of the upstairs bedrooms, that day, a rock flew through the window. By then Isabel had her fill of Southern hospitality and decided to show them what a Jersey girl was all about. She hurled the rock back. It missed Aidan’s face by an inch. It turned out he wasn’t throwing the rock at her. He didn’t even know she was inside. Stella Roycroft, Aidan’s mother, was a sweet woman who had the world’s worst luck at keeping a job, or so Isabel learned as the years went on. Aidan was blowing off steam over her most recent trip to the unemployment line, winging the rock out of frustration. He returned the smooth but sizable stone to her, Isabel sure the incident would result in her exile from Folsom Middle School. Instead, he said he was sorry she’d missed. He liked the idea of an edgy scar marring his looks. It sparked something inside Isabel, a merger of gratitude and realization, a bond that felt as solid as the rock. Not everyone was what he or she appeared. Not even this beautiful boy who stood before her. There was a rift in his voice; a sincerity that said he was more than Catswallow’s matinee idol. In him, she saw the person everyone else had missed, capturing Isabel in a way that Aidan’s image never could.
    The two commiserated for hours, not going home until after dark, when they were both promptly grounded. And because they were banished to the trailer park they ended up spending more time together. Isabel made Aidan Roycroft laugh, taught him how to play poker and how to cook something besides boxed macaroni-and-cheese. Over the years they did homework and took turns reading aloud novels for English class. Most important, Isabel took the time to listen. This quiet act was a basic necessity for Aidan, something like food, shelter, clothing, and a finely tuned ear—though, to this day, she wasn’t sure if that was the right order. He was not needy, but he did need her. Back then, Aidan’s acceptance of Isabel was all it took for the kids at school to leave her in peace. She did make friends, though neither she nor Aidan connected to outsiders the way they did to each other.
    Initially, the relationship moved to the rhythm of any adolescent tryst, the unlikely swap of a watermelon Jolly Rancher leading to Isabel’s first kiss,