Promise Me Something Read Online Free Page A

relieved to see she was alive but the sight of her also made me sick.
    “I’ve been better.” She gestured at her red eyes and gave me a nervous smile. “Where’s Ethan?”
    “Getting ready to eat,” I said, trying not to breathe in her smell. The perfume reminded me of the day of Dad’s accident.
    “Thanks.” As she swept past me down the hall, I wondered for the millionth time what on earth possessed my father to keep dating the woman who had crashed his car and nearly killed him. Was he a masochist? It just didn’t seem right to me. Especially not after what had happened to Mom.
    But tonight, after two weeks apart from Lucy, his face broke out in a grin when she walked into the kitchen. “There you are!” he said, knocking his chair as he stood to embrace her. He had to balance on the foot that wasn’t in the cast. “Where have you been?”
    “Sit.” She crossed the room in two long strides and helped him back into his chair. “You’ll break your other ankle.”
    “We thought you’d be back yesterday,” said Dad. “Why didn’t you answer your phone?”
    “I’m so sorry, Ethan. ” Lucy had bags under her eyes, and her short, feathery haircut was ruffled, like she hadn’t taken a shower in days. “I wanted to call you and fill you in, but I just couldn’t find a free moment.”
    “Is everything OK?”
    “In a manner of speaking.” She sat down on one of the other kitchen chairs and ran her manicured fingernails through her hair. “Right before I was supposed to drive to the airport, my mother had an episode.”
    “Episode?” I pulled out a chair and sat down.
    Lucy glanced at me, then at Dad.
    “Reyna…” Dad looked apologetic. “Could you give us a few minutes alone?”
    I opened my mouth to protest, but at the look on Lucy’s face, I changed my mind. She pressed her lips together, apparently reliving some terrible memory. So I stood up, gathered my sweatshirt off the kitchen table, and walked out of the room. Then I stopped in the hallway just around the corner and listened.
    “Was it the epilepsy again?” asked Dad.
    I couldn’t hear what Lucy said, but I heard a chair scrape against the floor and imagined Dad leaning over to rub her shoulders. It was just like him to offer her a hug, even though he was the one who needed comfort. After all, she walked away from the accident without a scratch. Dad was the one who got pummeled.
    Leaning closer toward the kitchen, I tried to hear what had happened to her mom, but I couldn’t make out the words. All I could hear were a few phrases: “Epileptic seizure,” “emergency room,” “insurance policy.”
    Then Dad said in just above a whisper, “Shit. I’m sorry.”
    I leaned my forehead against the wall. I hated when Dad swore. Mom would never have tolerated it. It made me feel like he’d forgotten her.
    “I know this is a horrible thing to say”—Lucy’s voice was quivering—“but between taking care of you and taking care of my mom, I just need a few more days to take care of myself.”
    “I understand,” said Dad.
    “I’m a lousy nurse.”
    “Shhh.” Dad was probably hugging her, stroking her hair.
    I understood why she was overwhelmed, but it annoyed me all the same. Lucy had been driving the car when the accident happened— she was the one who blew the stop sign, and it was her fault Dad needed a nurse now. What gave her the right to complain? Retreating to my room, I headed straight for my laptop. Google loaded slowly as I stared at the screen. How to get your dad to break up with his girlfriend , I typed.
    The doorbell rang again. Like an automatic reflex, I closed the browser and stared at the turquoise wallpaper on my desktop. Dad and Lucy would get the door. It would be the Chinese food this time, and we would all sit down around the kitchen table to eat dinner together for the first time in days. There would be two portions of mu shu pork, Dad’s favorite, and I knew he’d offer all of it to Lucy. At