The Book of Matthew (The Alex Chronicles Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

around my neck. “Oh, sorry,” I mumbled, lifting the strap over my head and handing over the guitar.
    He leaned it against a nearby chair. “Am I moving too fast?” he asked.
    I raised my eyes from his black shirt until I saw the green of his eyes. I tilted my head at him, as if looking at his eyes from a different angle would make me understand what he meant. Moving too fast musically or romantically?
    “I don’t know,” I said.
    “You don’t know?”
    “No.”
    His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at me quizzically. “So you don’t know if you were following along?”
    “Yes,” I said. “Wait! I mean no! Well, yes and no.” I sighed. “Let me start again.”
    He crossed his arms. “Okay.”
    “No, you weren’t moving too fast and yes I was following along. Sort of.”
    He gave me a crooked smile. “All right.” He dug his keys out of his pocket and hoisted his duffel bag over his shoulder. “See you next week!”
    Had I fallen asleep during the lesson and dreamt the part where he pushed himself against me, whispered in my ear, and seductively caressed my wrist? Had he not felt the spark? The chemistry? The attraction?
    I did the only thing I could at the moment. I casually grabbed my coat and said goodbye, walking down the stairs as if completely unaffected by what had just happened. Once I reached the kitchen door, though, out of Matt’s sight, I darted through the chandeliered room and burst through the front door into the cold darkness outside. I didn’t stop running until I reached the safety of my dorm room.
     
    II.
     
    I had a party on my seventeenth birthday. The day had been spent opening presents, playing games, and eating lots of cake. Bobby was there, and he brought a few of his friends so that the girls didn’t outnumber the boys. Every time one of my parents tried to enter the room I shooed them away with a wave of my hand. I didn’t want them embarrassing me in front of my friends. Not that it mattered. It happened anyway, the minute I blew out the candles on the cake. My mother sobbed in front of everyone that her little girl was no longer Sweet Sixteen.
    Later that evening she tapped her tear reservoir for the second time that day. She didn’t cry happy tears, however. These were angry tears, ones that surfaced from the deepest bowels of her being—the place where wrath befriends your worst fears.
    It was the night she confronted her husband about his infidelity; it was the night I learned of my father’s affair.
    I heard their fight in the bathroom…that moment of clarity that made her scream…the exact moment when my mother had figured it all out.
    She had found a stash of letters scented with perfume. That’s all she told me. To this day, a dozen or so years later, I still don’t know who they were from, what they said, how many there were, or how my mother found them. She never told me any of that. To this day we still don’t talk about it. All I know is that one piece of information she shared with me—and that happened after I had already figured it out on my own.
    While lying in bed that cool spring night, listening to my Walkman in the dark, I heard a commotion in the hallway outside my room. Then I saw shadows pass underneath the door. A minute later I heard the scream.
    It wasn’t a scream of fear, but certainly not one of anxious joy, like the sound your throat makes when you crest a hill and go hurtling down the tracks of a roller coaster. This was a scream of release—of dreams shattered and nightmares confirmed.
    I switched the music off and removed the headphones to listen for more sounds.
    All seemed quiet. Pulling the layers of sheets and blankets down with one swoop, I swung my legs out over the edge of the bed and dug my toes hard into the fibers of the carpet. The welcoming softness beneath my feet would be the only comfort I enjoyed that evening.
    My bedroom was tucked away in the corner of the house on the second floor. Even if the door was open a