The Years After Read Online Free Page A

occupation. They’d each decorated their own sides of the small room. Kylie’s side reflected her new and almost fierce taste. If Olivia ran into Kylie as a stranger, such an intimate knowledge of her taste would have had Olivia nearly running in the opposite direction. Olivia’s side was a lot more neutral and innocuously decorated with pictures of her friends from high school. Her bedspread had muted stripes, topped off with a large picture of a flute, surrounded by bright light and flowers, that hung over the bed.
    Kylie’s bedspread was black. Everything on her side was black. From her bedspread to the evil-looking pictures she hung of zombie movies. Kylie was a sophomore at Peterson. She made her transformation last year and went from being a shy, sweet, unsure cousin, to a gothic-gone-wrong, nearly shocking cousin.
    She set her book bag down and took a throw pillow from the floor, which she winged at Kylie’s head. “Are you permanently a vampire now? Is the light going to shine through your skin?”
    Kylie groaned as she flipped onto her back and cracked an eye open. Literally, she almost had to crack it as her makeup was so thick, Olivia thought maybe it glued her eyelids shut. Her black eyeliner outlined her gray eyes in deep rings. Her makeup went from black to dark gray and she colored her eyes in all the way to her darkened eyebrows. Her hair was a once soft, lovely shade of dark red, bordering on brown. Olivia hadn’t seen her real color in over a year now. It was a stark, raven black now. Being long, it was usually drawn back into a severe ponytail, which hung down to her mid-back. Her hair was so thick, she used selected strands of it to tie it back. Now her hair kind of stuck out as she scratched at her eyes and yawned.
    “Shit, Liv, why do you look so damn perky all the time? You gonna be like this all year? Sleep. Sit. Live a little.” Her voice was gravelly. She slowly sat up and slid her feet to the floor before resting her head in her hands.
    “You’re going to be sharing rehab with Aunt Vickie if you don’t lay off a little. It’s three o’clock. You haven’t been to class yet. You rarely get out of here before five.” Their aunt Vickie had been fighting alcoholism off and on until she finally moved in with Olivia’s family. That seemed to do the trick of finally getting her sober.
    “What are you, my mother? I swear to God, go hang with Ally if I’m not up to your expectations.”
    “Your mother is afraid to say anything for fear you’ll go sacrifice something. Jesus, Ky, what is going on with you?”
    She leaned over and started peeling her boots off. Her black jeans were so tight and skinny, Olivia wondered if she didn’t need grease to get out of them. Olivia was bony and skinny in her own right, but Kylie was verging on barely a hundred pounds. She wore heavy layers in front of her parents and other concerned adults to hide it, but Olivia knew she regularly starved herself. She smoked all the time and drank almost more. That comprised most of her calorie count. She never looked well. Dark rings marred the white of her cheeks. Her blood-red lips were painted to hide their thin, bluish color.
    She rolled her eyes. “Nothing is wrong with me. It’s called college, Liv. We’re supposed to live a little. Try new things. Break away from the good, perfect, little girls we used to be. Aren’t you tired of it by now?”
    “I am trying new things. You have to leave the dorm room for that to happen. And while you were sleeping, I met a hot guy.”
    Kylie got up and ran her hands through her slicked back bangs. “Did you run the other way?”
    Olivia stuck her tongue out. “Why are you being such a bitch today? What did I do to you?”
    “Well, you usually run the opposite direction when anyone with a dick comes near you. Or stammer something stupid before freezing up.”
    “I did neither.”
    “Band geek?”
    She stiffened. Kylie never stopped insulting how she chose to spend the