Saving Grace Read Online Free

but it was like she was made of air. She just faded away intonothing. I grabbed for her but there was nothing to hold on to.
    I woke up with a start. It didn’t matter how many times I dreamed about my mom. She was still dead when I woke up.
    I straightened up and stretched. My head had been slumped over against the car seat, and my mouth was all sticky inside. I felt around on the truck floor, found the water bottle and drank what was left. It wasn’t very cold anymore.
    â€œWhere are we?” I asked Justin. My ponytail had come half undone. I pulled the elastic loose and raked my fingers through the knots in my hair.
    â€œWe’re getting pretty close to Edmundston,” he said.
    â€œHow long before we get to Montreal?”
    â€œHours.”
    â€œYou know, we’d make better time on the highway,” I said.
    â€œYeah,” he said. “Except the cops are probably looking for you by now. We have to stay off the main roads. You did kidnap a baby, you know, Evie.”
    â€œDon’t say that,” I said, twisting my hair back into a ponytail again. “She’s mine. You can’t kidnap your own kid.”
    Justin had turned the radio on low while I’d been asleep. “Hey, that’s our song,” I said.
    â€œWhat do you mean, ‘our song’?” Justin said.
    I turned the sound up just a notch and sang along, keeping my voice low so Brianna wouldn’t wake up. “...when you touch me, I can hardly breathe, when you touch me, I still believe.” I looked at Justin. “I can’t believe you don’t remember. That’s the first song we danced to, the very first time we made love.”
    He shrugged. “Whatever.”
    â€œJustin! That’s the night we met. How can you not remember?”
    â€œI remember meeting you. I just don’t remember dancing and songs and stuff like that.”
    How could he have forgotten? I’d told my dad that I was sleeping over at Jade’s that night. She’d been my best friendsince grade two, except now her mom didn’t want Jade hanging around with me anymore because I got pregnant. Jade’s mother said I was a bad influence. But back then we hung out all the time. I’d say I was staying at Jade’s, and she’d tell her mother she was sleeping over at my place. That way we could go out and no one would ask where we were going and when we would be home. That had always worked because no one ever checked, and most of the time when one of us said we were sleeping over at the other’s house we really were.
    That night we’d gone to a party Evan Kelly was having out at his parents’ camp. Most of the kids at the party were in high school, but Jade had been invited by this guy, Dylan, who she’d met at the Y pool, and he’d said she could bring a friend. And that was me.
    So anyway, Dylan had grabbed Jade as soon as we got there. Someone gave me a beer and I just wandered around at first. I didn’t really like beer—I’d sneaked afew sips of my dad’s and the taste was gross—but I couldn’t say no because I didn’t want it to look like I wasn’t cool.
    I didn’t really know anybody, and Jade was already in Dylan’s lap, so after a while I went outside on the deck because it was just too loud inside. There were steps that went all the way down to the beach, and Justin was sitting on the top one smoking a cigarette.
    I didn’t usually go for guys who smoked because when they stuck their tongue in your mouth it tasted really raunchy. Plus I hated the smell in my hair. I’ve always spent a lot of effort on my hair, and I never bought cheap shampoo or conditioner, and I didn’t want to smell like some old, stinky cigarette when I was spending fifteen bucks a bottle for conditioner. But Justin was blowing these totally cool smoke rings, perfect circles that just floated away into the dark.
    I didn’t know