Vitro Read Online Free Page B

women, braiding jewelry to sell to the tourists and singing intricate, clever verses back and forth, like freestyle rap, except sung by grandmothers. I forgot how much I loved this place.
“So what does it say?”
“It says, ‘There is no brightness without darkness. There is no body without its shadow.’”
She let go of the beads, and they swung back and forth hypnotically, the sunlight flashing off them. “Some kind of good luck charm?”
He drummed his fingers on the yoke, and his tongue darted across his lips. “So your mom moved out to Skin Island full time, huh?”
“Yeah. I don’t remember the details, and she doesn’t talk about it, but I think she was promoted or something and had to move closer to the lab out there. That’s when Dad and I moved to Boston. He teaches biology.”
“Remarried?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Karen. She has two kids, younger than me. What about your folks?”
“About the same as yours. Mom split three years ago, haven’t seen her since.”
Sophie stared at her hands in her lap. “Sucks.” “Yeah.” He shifted in his seat, lifted a hand to massage the back of his neck. “Have you been to Skin Island before?” “Never.” But not for lack of begging. Sophie leaned her head against the glass window, then sat up again when the vibration made her teeth rattle. “I see my mom three times a year at least, and she e-mails and calls a lot. We’ve stayed close, considering.” Considering the distance. Considering how much my dad hates every moment I spend with her. She’d never understood why her dad loathed her mom so much, or
what had severed them so severely apart all those years ago. Maybe Skin Island held the answers; it had certainly been a recurring topic of contention in their house when she was seven.
“We sure tore it up, didn’t we?” Jim asked, lightening the mood with a grin. “Back when we were kids.”
Sophie snorted and propped her elbow against the window, resting her head on her hand as she looked at him. “It’s lucky I did move, or you might’ve landed me in jail.” “Nah. You were too cute to get in trouble. It was me they always blamed.” He winked at her, and she rolled her eyes. “You were the one that deserved it!” She studied him thoughtfully. “So how have you been, anyway?”
“Oh. You know.” He shrugged. “Nothing changes here.
Same old faces, same old drama.”
“What about Ginya?”
“She left when I was about ten, to take care of her mom in Yigo. I’ll see her every now and then. She hasn’t changed a bit. You’d recognize her right off. She’s like, ageless or something.”
Sophie smiled, comforted by the idea that some people never changed, could always be depended on to be exactly the way they should.
“What about you?” he asked. “Boston, huh?”
“Ugh. It’s cold and dirty. I miss here.” She turned and looked down at the blue water below. “I miss the beaches and the never ending summer.”
He grimaced. “I’ll trade you. You know I’ve never been to the States? I’m a U.S. citizen but I’ve never once set foot on the continent of North America.”
“You have a deal,” she said. But it wasn’t Guam she wanted, not really. It was Skin Island. This was the argument that had her and her dad at each other’s throats lately.
With her senior year approaching, Sophie was ready to make college plans, and her goal was to get through med school as fast as possible and then get a job with her mom. She couldn’t imagine anything more worthwhile to do than find cures for the disorders and diseases of the world. Her mom was a hero, and all Sophie had ever wanted was to be by her side, helping her. But for reasons her dad never seemed able to articulate, he was dead set against her plan. Well, if anyone can back me up, it’ll be Mom. If her mom was okay. Anxiety fluttered in her stomach like a wounded bird, and the note in her pocket weighed like a brick. Dozens of possible