The Truth About Letting Go Read Online Free

neighborhood. I always wondered what that was like.”
    “What?” Can she not ride a bike or something?
    “Having a parent who liked you and wanted to be with you, spend time with you.”
    “Oh.” I pull my own blade of grass not sure how to respond. Is she saying her parents don't like her? “I don’t know. It’s just how it was. Mom’s always working herself to death, but with his job, Dad was home most of the time. With me.”
    “You must’ve loved it.”
    “Actually, it kind of got on my nerves sometimes. A lot of the time, really.”
    “Really?” Charlotte smiles, her eyes full of amazement.
    I can’t believe I feel safe admitting this to her, like I don’t have to feel guilty saying the truth. I wonder if it’s because no matter what, I’m still the one in control, the one with more power. It’s a cynical thought I don’t like. I push it away, and instead I think about how amazing it is, my dad’s number one fan lives right here in our neighborhood.
    I wish I could tell him. He’d probably make a funny observation about life, and I could laugh again.
    “Well, yeah,” I say, feeling better. “I mean, wouldn’t you get sick of your dad always wanting to know what you were doing or what happened at school or if you didn’t want to talk about it, insisting you go for a bike ride or a run to clear your head?”
    “I probably wouldn’t look like this,” she chuckles.
    I’m not sure the safe reply, so I look back at the creek.
    “You always looked happy to me,” she says softly.
    “I was,” I whisper, and for a second, I feel dangerously close to crying.
    The pressure’s back, and I don’t want to be here now. I stand quickly—far too quickly for Charlotte to keep up.
    “I’m taking off,” I say, without giving her a chance to speak. But I see the look in her eye, and I know she knows what almost happened.
    And I know I’ll be back.
     
    * * *
     
    The next day is Sunday. I lie in bed listening as my mom softly taps on my door. She calls to me, something about church, but I don’t answer. Finally, she goes away. I roll back over and close my eyes for another hour. When I open them again, the house is quiet.
    I jump up, throw on my track shorts and a long-sleeved tee, and jog out to the creek. After a few minutes of sitting, I hear the sound of respiratory distress and Charlotte appears. She takes her place below me on the bluff.
    I break the silence first. “Did your family move here so you could go to Creekside, too?”
    “Sort-of,” she says. “I think they wanted to get me out of my old high school to see if I was stress-eating.”
    “Your old school was stressful?”
    “Some of the kids there… well, there were a few mean girls.” She seems embarrassed, so I don’t pursue it.
    “And you moved here over the summer?”
    “Yeah, but I was at camp when they moved in,” she says. “I didn’t get back until the week before school started.”
    “Camp? Where’d you go to camp?”
    “Camp Be Well.”
    I frown. “Is that like an Indian name or something?”
    “It’s a fat camp.” She says flatly.
    A laugh jumps into my throat, but I swallow it back down.
    “Oh,” I say. “So. What’s that like?”
    “It’s supposed to be esteem-building. But it’s hard to feel good about yourself when you’ve been shipped off for being an embarrassment.”
    “I don’t think that’s—”
    “How would you know?”
    I’m surprised by the sharpness in her high-pitched tone. It’s an unsettling mixture—bitterness delivered in a princess voice. I close my mouth and look back at the creek. She’s right. I don’t know anything about why her parents would send her to a fat camp. Dad always said you had to want to change for change to happen. And weight isn’t something I struggle with.
    We’re quiet a few moments and then she speaks again. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles.
    I don’t answer. I don’t really know what to say.
    “My parents own those Posh Princess stores,”