Pulled Within Read Online Free

either. After all this time, I still wasn’t able to separate the two. But I had no choice.
    With one day until my eviction and no other way to make money, I walked to his store. It was only a few blocks from Brady’s apartment. He was waiting on a customer when I got inside, so I hung around the chip display. He’d owned this place since I was a kid; my brother and I used to come here for candy. Uncle Irving would give us small paper bags and let us fill them to the top with whatever we wanted. We always chose the gummy stuff: worms, bears, fish. Those were our favorites. Then we’d help him stock the shelves to pay off everything we’d eaten. We didn’t mind. Darren and I got to do it together, and that was all that mattered to us.
    Uncle Irving smiled when he saw me. “Rae, my girl! What brings you in?”
    I dragged my eyes away from the candy aisle and the hunks of penny gum that I remembered Darren chewing so he could blow bubbles in my face. I slowly glanced at my uncle, my eyes moving to his hands even though I didn’t want them to. They were harsh, weathered from hard work. His face was entirely different. There was a softness to it. A weakness, too.
    He knew there was a reason for me coming here. My past had obviously set a precedent, and I was thankful for that.
    “I wanted to see if you had any extra shifts I could take.”
    He moved out from behind the counter with two plastic bags in his hands and began walking down the aisles, dropping things in them as he went. “Extra shifts?”
    “Yeah…I could use some hours, if you have them.”
    He stopped when he reached me and handed the bags over. They were full—and heavy. “These are for you…take ‘em. Don’t know what you’ve been eating, but it ain’t enough. You’re all skin and bones. Has your mama seen how thin you are?”
    I shook my head, holding the bags back out to him. “No…I can’t take these.” It would all grow mold, just like the bread had.
    “Please, take ‘em or I’ll be offended,” he said. He wiped the corners of his mouth and crossed his arms over his chest. All IAll All I could focus on were the backs of his palms while he gripped his biceps. His hands were really starting to wrinkle. To age…
    My stomach began to twist.
    “Saint not giving you enough shifts? Thought things were real busy for that boy.”
    He didn’t know. It had been months since I’d last been here, and I was selective with what I told my mom.
    “I don’t work for Saint anymore.”
    He stood a little taller, his eyes narrowing as his hand reached up and scraped along the edge of his jaw, clenching and unclenching. His fingers knotted into fists. I read his body language as a sign of protection. “If that boy crossed any lines, I’ll—”
    “No, no, it was nothing like that.” I almost laughed at his response. Hands that looked so much like my uncle’s hadn’t shown the same concern when it came to the safety of others. “It just isn’t easy working for your ex, you know? Especially when he’s dating someone new.”
    That wasn’t totally a lie. It wasn’t the whole truth, either. But he didn’t need the truth because whatever I told him, he’d then go tell my mom. The less she knew, the better.
    He nodded. “I know how that can be. I’m sorry, my girl, but I’ve got nothing to give you but a few bags of food. Only servicing the townies until summer, so I’ve cut down on my help. Your mama asked for some shifts, too. Had nothing to give her, either.”
    I should have known she would have asked him for hours. It was November after all, and December seventeenth was quickly approaching. My body dealt with the upcoming date by rejecting anything I put in my stomach. Mom just worked herself to death.
    My fingers tightened around the plastic handles of the bags. “It’s okay. I’ve got some things going on up in Bangor. I just wanted to check with you first to see if I could save myself the commute.”
    “Whereabouts in