The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing Read Online Free

happen to.
    By the time he left us, he’d already lost touch with lots of his old friends. The only people I saw him with were ones who either wouldn’t look you in the eye or would stare for too long and make you want to take a step away from them. There were random girls too — one who wouldn’t stop shouting while they were in his bedroom and who later stumbled out having forgotten to button up her jeans and another whom I caught a glimpse of him having sex with (her miniskirt hitched up and her thong around her ankles) through the wide open bathroom door before I realized what was happening and took off for Izzy’s house.
    “There’s no reason at all for us to assume it could be Devin,” my dad repeated, his face pale. “This article gives next to no details. The description probably fits a million people in this country.”
    My mother said we should call the Newmarket police department, and the suggestion made my dad raise his voice. “No one’s calling the police department,” he insisted. “Devin’s not a missing person. He left of his own free will. We can’t ring up police departments across the country every time we open the newspaper, for God’s sake.”
    My mom scrunched up her eyebrows. “We’re talking about our son,” she said hoarsely. “If I have to call police departments across the country, I will.”
    Mom snatched up the cordless and dialled information to ask for the number. Dad listened to her without offering another word of protest. The two of us sat there trying to piece together details from the half of the conversation we could hear. Mom’s fingers trembled worse than ever as she hung up. She said that the body had just been identified as a young man from Quebec but that the police wouldn’t reveal any more as the family had yet to be notified. I silently cursed my brother for making us miserable, even as relief clawed at my throat.
    My mind sifts through it all again as I roll over in bed — dream Devin, missing Devin, the Devin who would’ve applauded me for calling it quits with Jacob and the one who raged at my mother, accusing her of trying to make him fat when she was only trying to get him to eat some pot roast and peas.
    It makes me so sad to think about that I can hardly stand it. Does anyone bother to coax Devin to eat dinner anymore?

CHAPTER FOUR
    ~
    MS. YUEN PAIRS ME up with Aya Yamamoto for a conversation exercise in French last period. It’s the first time we’ve spoken to each other since that night at Wyatt’s but neither of us mentions it. Aya’s French is almost as good as her English and that makes me angry with her. She’s too smart to act like a skank for people like Wyatt and Orlando. What was she even doing at Wyatt’s party? The people she usually hangs out with play the flute and top the honour roll.
    I don’t say goodbye to her when the bell rings. I’m not holding her fully responsible for that night but she’s not innocent either. Now that I’m unattached I could easily spend too much time thinking about things that don’t really matter, like why people do the things they do, but I’ve decided that I won’t. What I need is to keep busy, and I’ve settled on the idea of a part-time job.
    Last spring I started thinking that I’d like a baby blue scooter to cruise around town in. I could change my mind long before I have the money to buy one, but at least it’s something to think about that doesn’t involve high school guys or serious amounts of talent in an as yet undiscovered area.
    If I had a scooter now I could hop on and be home in a couple of minutes rather than the fifteen it takes me to walk. Izzy’s mom picks her and Marguerite up almost every day, but my house is in the opposite direction and since we’ve just started hanging out together again it doesn’t seem like a good time to ask for a favour. Actually, even if I had a scooter I’d sooner ride in something with a roof this afternoon because it’s starting to