Adelaide Confused Read Online Free

watching. I
didn’t need to be an empath to know she was jealous.
    Reed Wallace stopped a pace
or two away and gave me a winning smile. “You left so abruptly, I
just wanted to be sure I hadn’t said something to offend
you.”
    I didn’t know what he was
fishing for. I thought silence might irritate him most, but I felt
like ripping him a new one, so I went in the direction that made me
feel best. “That’s a bit pretentious, thinking you have the power
to offend me when we only met moments ago.” Pretentious but true,
he had put me off. The whole introduction had been strange and
unsettling, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
    He raised both hands, a
helpless gesture meant to appease me. But my response had only
increased the curious interest that drove him—to what, I wasn’t
sure. “You’re right, forgive this pompous ass,” he
joked.
    I gave him an empty smile
while sinking down into the bucket seat and shutting the door on
him.
    Stephen told me I’d been
unnecessarily rude, and even more rude than usual. I told Stephen
he had a man-crush, and that Wolverine would be jealous. He gave up
speaking to me after that. I could tell he was thinking of
Francesca since I was feeling extremely lustful.
    My own emotions were felt
and experienced the same way as everyone else’s. So I had to be
logical, often evaluating myself through questions. Did I have
something to feel sad about? Was there a reason I should be
excited? A reason to be aroused? If the answer was no, like it was
then, then I assumed I was picking up feelings that were not my
own.
    Yes, feeling the longing
and attraction of another person was extremely uncomfortable. And
stewing in the car with a horny teenage boy was not my favorite
pastime. The only thing that made it bearable was that he didn’t
know—and would never know—that I was invading his privacy that
way.
    I parked the car and waited
while Stephen collected his backpack. The porch light was on and I
caught a glimpse of his mother pacing behind the screen
door.
    “Thanks for letting me tag along.”
    “ It’s no pro—” A blurry
white haze formed in my peripheral vision, costing me my train of
thought. I turned and searched the dark corner of his home,
wondering if I’d imagined it.
    He looked to where I was
squinting. “What? What is it?”
    I shook my head. “Nothing I
guess.”

Chapter 3
     
    I woke up around nine the
next day, sleeping more than the needed eight hours. Peaceful sleep
hadn’t always come easy for me. I’d continued sharing a room with
my sisters after the accident, a mistake, though at the time I
didn’t know it.
    Emotions weren’t reserved
for the waking hours. Dreaming was said to be the process by which
our minds organized themselves, absorbing or flushing away
countless thoughts, images, and emotions.
    REM was the period of sleep
when we did our dreaming, and I was often stuck there. My emotions
and those I had caught off my sleeping sisters were supplied with
stories, the brain’s explanation. I woke to bizarre dreams, feeling
afraid, angry, or elated. I had felt it all. But always I woke,
unable to reach a deep and restful state.
    This was about the time my
mother was becoming desperate to fix me. She tried therapy,
counseling, more therapy, pills, pills, hypnosis, meditation, and
more pills. For a while I was hooked on the drugs they gave me for
my insomnia.
    Thanks to Ben I slept
peacefully now, drug free. When Mary died he moved into a yellow
trailer not far from the motel. Like all things that reminded him
of what he was missing, their old house was abandoned, closed off
and left unoccupied. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to sell it, to
move on.
    He offered to let me rent
it after he realized I was having apartment troubles. Troubles
like: there weren’t many apartments on the island, they were
expensive, and I couldn’t stand being surrounded by
people.
    That was my favorite thing
about the house, the location. It was a small and well