The Darkest Joy Read Online Free Page B

our conversation. “Oh, Brooke . . . come home,” Lacey says in an insistent voice and I clench my eyes, the heat of my sadness burning like acid behind my eyelids.
    “No,” I reply quietly. The relocation hasn’t muted my sadness, my guilt . . . but at least I no longer have to contend with the torment of familiar surroundings that inspire too many memories, that turn my sadness into unbearable grief.
    The silence stretches. Finally, I fill it. “It’ll be really quaint when I put in some elbow grease . . .”
    “Quaint?” Lacey asks in a disbelieving tone and as usual she doesn’t think anything’s good enough for me.
    “Charming?” I add hopefully, though my tone belies my words.
    “Those are terms that people use when something could be cute if it was torn down and rebuilt.”
    Exactly. Out loud I answer, “It’s not so bad. There’s heat . . . kinda. And there’s running water.”
    More silence.
    “Like, was no running water really a possibility?” Lacey asks.
    I see the roof of the outhouse from my perch on the couch. “Yes,” I say with real feeling.
    “Okay,” Lacey says, and I can see her shoring up, the mental image of her folding her slim arms across her chest, blowing an errant strand of light hair out of her face as she tries to resolvemy chaos for me. Typical Lacey mode; she’s always been there for me that way.
    I don’t want my broken fixed. If I’d wanted resolution I’d have stayed in Seattle and faced whatever music was there.
    Instead, I fled.
    “Send me a pic of your car,” she demands.
    I groan. This just keeps getting worse. Sometimes I want to lie. But I don’t; my honesty is as brutal as my circumstances.
    “God, what now?” Lacey asks.
    “Well . . . the guy I bought it from thought he’d do me a favor and give it a quickie paint job.”
    “Tell me.”
    “It’s his idea of hippie chic.”
    “Oh for shit’s sake, it can’t be that bad.”
    I look through the haze of grime on the windows and can make out the bus from fifty feet away; the bright colors are beacons of tackiness.
    Pretty bad.
    “Hang on,” I say, then slipping off the couch I shove my feet into my Crocs and step out onto the porch. Like some scene from a movie a ray of light pierces the cloud cover, dousing the bus with its strobe of light.
    I hold up my phone, click, then hit send .
    I wait for the inevitable.
    “Oh. My. God!” Lacey shrieks in my ear and I take the cell away from my ear.
    “Right?” I agree, wincing at her pants of hyperventilation.
    “It’s like someone puked paint on your car . . .”
    “Yeah,” I agree.
    “Sorry,” she finally says in resignation.
    “Thanks,” I reply, but I’m smiling, thinking about how happy Tucker had been, thinking he’s doing me a good turn.
    A pause then, “So what do you think? Really?”
    I look around at the cabin . . . the open pasture that rolls to the woods as they stand watch over the cold sea. I can vaguely hear waves crashing on the rocks below.
    “I think Alaska can get in your blood.”
    “Huh? Really? Don’t you miss . . . everything?” Lacey asks.
    My family.
    “Not really,” I lie.
    “Huh,” she replies, not believing anything. “Turnouts for Juilliard happened,” Lacey says casually.
    I knew that. Late April—for entrance in the fall.
    I swallow past the painful lump that forms like a soft rock in my throat. The sea breeze tears through the open posts as I stand on the porch. The freshness of the air is indescribable. It’s full of sea and green, and it’s just . . . clean. I suck in a lungful, my cheeks wet.
    I say nothing and the conversation stalls.
    “Brooke . . . are you, have you . . .”
    “No,” I answer in a short, chopped-off syllable. “I told you, I’m not playing again.”
    More silence.
    “Don’t stop calling me, Brookie. Don’t let what’s happened stop . . . us.”
    My hand grips my cell, that thread of our friendship pulling taut between us. It’s