The Last Forever Read Online Free Page A
Author: Deb Caletti
out.
“Dad!”
I need so much from him, I do. I need him to hear me calling his name, for starters. But this is apparently what he needs. He drops to his knees and sits. He fishes around in one of the side pockets of his cargo shorts. I creep down, grabbing at branches. “Tessa Bessa, check it out!”
He is holding something to his mouth. I say a prayer, even if God is apparently on a coffee break. If that something Dad is holding is a joint, I don’t know what I’ll do. But it isn’t a joint—it’s something bright. A pink bottle? And then there is a sudden release of bubbles as he blows, the luminescent blue-green-pink globes that lift and float and crash against the rocks.
I feel the roll of gravel beneath the slick surface of my shoe, and I scream as I fall. I grab for a branch, for a handful of desert scrub, but there is nothing. My feet skitter out from under me, and there is the tick-ping of pebbles tumbling down. I land hard on my knees, my palms, and my heart is thudding. I open my eyes and see the red ground beneath me, and justbeyond, the drop-off, the endless layers of rock to the bottom. Gravel burns under my skin, and there’s the warmth of blood. I want to sob, but no sound comes out. My chest just heaves, and I won’t turn my head to look. No, I grip the ground and keep my eyes fixed, because if I look, I will see a space so vast and immeasurable you could be lost within it forever. I want so much to feel as if I’m not falling. I need this most of all.
“Tess! What are you doing down there?” my father says. “Christ, you missed it. You missed the best part.”
* * *
By the time evening arrives, there are ten messages on my phone, split evenly between Meg and Dillon. They begin somewhere around lunchtime. Meg has gone over to my house. They are both sure something is terribly wrong. This speaks either to my usual reliability or to my current fragile state, I have no idea which.
In the film version, I am an outlaw on the run. I am riding a satiny black horse that gallops away, and I have no ties to anyone. In real life, though, horses kind of scare me. Those big teeth. Meg sounds near tears—that’s how worried she is—and Dillon has taken on the firm, no-nonsense voice of his father. I text them both. Sorry to worry you. Dad decided we needed a road trip. I’m fine. More soon! The exclamation point seems overly cheery. Sorry , I type again.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, you can pile on as many as you want, but the guilt is still there, like that pea under all those mattresses.
We stay at the Piney Woods Lodge. The name makes you think of stone fireplaces and stuffed elk heads and downy beds, but it is actually one of those two-level motels you see in movies where someone always OD’s. No one ever OD’s in a La Quinta in the movies. It’s always these places with windows looking out onto a parking lot and gold room numbers on the doors.
Well, of course it smells like cigarettes in there. Not a recent cigarette, but one that was smoked sometime in the 1970s. I think about sleeping in my clothes. I once read an article that said the bedspreads in motels harbor more disgusting stuff than just about any other object on earth, and my mind is now unraveling all of the sordid possibilities.
This can’t get any worse. (Be careful saying stuff like that.)
“We’ve got to go to Las Vegas since we’re so close,” my father says. “Don’t you think?” He is flipping channels on the television, which doesn’t take long, because there are maybe three whole stations.
“I’m not really a Las Vegas kind of person.” I’m still pissed at him for what happened on the trail. And he’s still clueless about it.
“What kind of person is a Las Vegas kind of person?”
This is too obvious to deserve an answer. The pixiebell is a little limp from all that time in the hot car, so I water it and set it on the laminated table by the window. It looks so innocent there. It’s as out of
“Dad!”
I need so much from him, I do. I need him to hear me calling his name, for starters. But this is apparently what he needs. He drops to his knees and sits. He fishes around in one of the side pockets of his cargo shorts. I creep down, grabbing at branches. “Tessa Bessa, check it out!”
He is holding something to his mouth. I say a prayer, even if God is apparently on a coffee break. If that something Dad is holding is a joint, I don’t know what I’ll do. But it isn’t a joint—it’s something bright. A pink bottle? And then there is a sudden release of bubbles as he blows, the luminescent blue-green-pink globes that lift and float and crash against the rocks.
I feel the roll of gravel beneath the slick surface of my shoe, and I scream as I fall. I grab for a branch, for a handful of desert scrub, but there is nothing. My feet skitter out from under me, and there is the tick-ping of pebbles tumbling down. I land hard on my knees, my palms, and my heart is thudding. I open my eyes and see the red ground beneath me, and justbeyond, the drop-off, the endless layers of rock to the bottom. Gravel burns under my skin, and there’s the warmth of blood. I want to sob, but no sound comes out. My chest just heaves, and I won’t turn my head to look. No, I grip the ground and keep my eyes fixed, because if I look, I will see a space so vast and immeasurable you could be lost within it forever. I want so much to feel as if I’m not falling. I need this most of all.
“Tess! What are you doing down there?” my father says. “Christ, you missed it. You missed the best part.”
* * *
By the time evening arrives, there are ten messages on my phone, split evenly between Meg and Dillon. They begin somewhere around lunchtime. Meg has gone over to my house. They are both sure something is terribly wrong. This speaks either to my usual reliability or to my current fragile state, I have no idea which.
In the film version, I am an outlaw on the run. I am riding a satiny black horse that gallops away, and I have no ties to anyone. In real life, though, horses kind of scare me. Those big teeth. Meg sounds near tears—that’s how worried she is—and Dillon has taken on the firm, no-nonsense voice of his father. I text them both. Sorry to worry you. Dad decided we needed a road trip. I’m fine. More soon! The exclamation point seems overly cheery. Sorry , I type again.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Oh, you can pile on as many as you want, but the guilt is still there, like that pea under all those mattresses.
We stay at the Piney Woods Lodge. The name makes you think of stone fireplaces and stuffed elk heads and downy beds, but it is actually one of those two-level motels you see in movies where someone always OD’s. No one ever OD’s in a La Quinta in the movies. It’s always these places with windows looking out onto a parking lot and gold room numbers on the doors.
Well, of course it smells like cigarettes in there. Not a recent cigarette, but one that was smoked sometime in the 1970s. I think about sleeping in my clothes. I once read an article that said the bedspreads in motels harbor more disgusting stuff than just about any other object on earth, and my mind is now unraveling all of the sordid possibilities.
This can’t get any worse. (Be careful saying stuff like that.)
“We’ve got to go to Las Vegas since we’re so close,” my father says. “Don’t you think?” He is flipping channels on the television, which doesn’t take long, because there are maybe three whole stations.
“I’m not really a Las Vegas kind of person.” I’m still pissed at him for what happened on the trail. And he’s still clueless about it.
“What kind of person is a Las Vegas kind of person?”
This is too obvious to deserve an answer. The pixiebell is a little limp from all that time in the hot car, so I water it and set it on the laminated table by the window. It looks so innocent there. It’s as out of
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