State of Grace Read Online Free

haphazard construction, the tree house was sturdy, made from boards salvaged from a nearby barn that was falling in on itself. We called it the Nest.
    Although I liked to be the first to get there, I was rarely able to beat Grace. Her lack of parental supervision gave her a freedom that neither Natalie nor I had. More often than not, I would arrive to find her pink banana-seat bike already propped against a nearby tree, and she would be curled up in one of the corners reading. Because her mother wasn’t awake to cook a morning meal, Grace’s breakfasts, if she bothered to eat, usually consisted of cold Pop-Tarts or crackers from a waxy sleeve of saltines she carried in her bag.
    Although we didn’t really talk about it, I think both Natalie and I recognized how Grace was neglected—the way her clothes were never quite clean or how haggard she always seemed to look. Of course, I say this now as a thirty-year-old, but looking back, it was more than just her appearance. Grace compartmentalized her life—separated the time she spent with us from the time she spent at home. She talked about her father only to say she had spent the weekend with him, and she never talked about her mother except to say that she “wasn’t feeling well” or that she “had a new boyfriend.”
    Grace endured her life stoically, though to this day, I can’t help but think if we had been older or better equipped emotionally tounderstand just what exactly was going on, we could have helped her. Maybe we even could have prevented what happened. Or maybe we couldn’t have. I don’t know. What I do know is, that Monday morning, three weeks into summer vacation, my thoughts were no more pressing than figuring out our plans for the summer. I grinned as I climbed the board slats nailed to the side of the tree to serve as a ladder and pulled myself up onto the platform. Grace was sitting in her corner on one of the torn lawn chair cushions we salvaged from the community dump, reading a library book and eating a strawberry Pop-Tart.
    I didn’t realize it at the time, but Grace was a pretty girl. Like me, she was gangly, though when she moved, there were different results. Where I was clumsy and awkward, Grace was graceful—her movements smooth and seamless. And there was something about the way she looked at people with her green, thickly lashed eyes. There was a depth about her that belied her years—a calmness that made all of us think she could handle anything.
    â€œHey,” I said somewhat breathless from the climb.
    She looked up, startled by my greeting. She had been so deeply engrossed in her book that she hadn’t heard me come up.
    â€œHey yourself,” she said as she stretched out her legs.
    â€œWhatcha reading?” I asked.
    â€œThe Outsiders.” Grace flipped it over so I could see the cover. “Not bad.”
    She broke off a piece of Pop-Tart and popped it into her mouth. She pushed several strands of blond hair from in front of her eyes and studied me as she chewed. The hollows beneath her eyes were smudged with shadows of fatigue. I was about to ask what time she had gotten to the Nest when a whoop of greeting came from the clearing. I peered down through the entrance as Natalie carelessly dropped her bike to the ground, jogged to the tree, and began to climb.
    â€œWhat’s up, chickens?” she said, rather than asked, as she heaved herself onto the platform. She was breathing heavily, her forehead and upper lip glistening with sweat.
    Natalie Stewart was the leader and the smartest member of ourgroup—not that Grace and I weren’t smart; we were. But not like Natalie. She was not only smart, she was also fearless. If there was trouble to get into, rules to break, or feathers to ruffle, Natalie was typically the ringleader.
    â€œNothing,” I said as I grabbed a cushion from the pile and tossed it at her. “How about