Pretty Instinct Read Online Free

all right by my side.
    “Ask if he saw Alma,” I mouth.
    “Did you see Miss Alma today, buddy?” he questions casually, my jaw clenched tight as I wait for the answer.
    “Yes, she loves me. Bethy too.” My brother can contain it no longer, already over any conversation not about his pets. “See my fish?” He shoves the bags in Jarrett’s face. “The red one’s yours. You can name it if you want.”
    Still behind them observing, I roll my hand, wanting Jarrett to confirm specifics. He winks, reading me like a book. “Awesome fish, dude, we’ll put them in a bowl in a sec. What’d Alma make you to eat today?”
    “Grilled cheese. Rhett, Bruce the Moose, I’m home!” Jarrett and I both chuckle at Conner’s clear dismissal of any further banter. He says he saw her, and he’s back with me now, seemingly unharmed, so I guess all’s well enough for me to move on.
    Jarrett leans in to conspire in his ear. “Your uncle ran to town, but Rhett’s in bed, go wake him up.”
    Such a shit, sending Conner to do his dirty work.
    Once he’s bouncing down the hallway to torture anyone in the vicinity, Jarrett sits back down and pats the spot beside him for me to take. “How bad this time?”
    I flop my head on his shoulder, letting him entwine our fingers. “Not too. Short and bitterly sweet.” I tilt my head and grin mischievously up at him. “I got in a few good jabs.”
    “I’d expect no less.”
    “I didn’t see Alma, though, which worries me. I just wish Conner wouldn’t ask to go. I wish he’d remember why he shouldn’t want to go.”
    “You sure about that? Maybe it’s better that he doesn’t remember. There’s a lot of bad shit stuck in my head I wish I could forget, ya feel me?” He squeezes my hand and brushes a kiss at my temple.
    In a way he’s right, I don’t want Bubs to have those visions in his head, waking him up at night, confusing him. But without his recollection, and him saying it out loud, I can’t ever prove what I know to be true. And therefore, I can’t keep him from our father. It’s never ending, these thoughts, the internal debates on the lesser of two evils. It’s exhausting.
    Conner played soccer and football from youth to high school; our father didn’t attend a single game. He was in a garage band for almost three years; Daddy Demon never heard a single song. He didn’t give a shit about Conner before the accident , which I’d bet my left tit was far from an accident, but now he’s hell bent on playing house with a twenty-seven-year-old man he barely even knows? I haven’t figured it out, but I will .
    My thoughts are splintered by a nasally shriek. “Get out, you retarded freak! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
    I’m on my feet and down the corridor in a flash, Jarrett hot on my heels.
    “Bubs? Bubs, what happened?” I ask as calmly as I can, dropping to my knees and wrapping my arms around him. He’s curled into a ball on the floor, rocking back and forth and banging clenched fists against his head. “Conner, stop,” I command, trying to restrain his arms, gasping in piercing pain when I catch his accidental elbow to the jaw. Always the damn elbow. “Shit,” I howl, shaking my head and rubbing it quickly before going back in. “Jarrett, help me! Rhett!”
    They’re already there, caught in the flurry of commotion, one of them now flinging me out of the way so they can stop Conner from hurting himself. This time it’s my back, a sharp blow knocking the air from me as I’m tossed aside, landing against the edge of a bunk. I’ve gotten pretty tough over the years, so I take the moment to ignore the back and rub on my jaw some more, working out the ache.
    Cami, our bassist and the one who’d set this catastrophe in motion, scrambles down and out of her top bunk, pulling a t-shirt over herself. “Liz, you can’t expect us to live like this! Your pervy fucking brother was creeping on me again. I don’t care what the hell’s wrong with him, I have