Oblivion Read Online Free

isn’t the Elijah I know, if only because the Elijah who’s been distracting me for the better part of the past year doesn’t use words like us . But I snuggle back into his embrace for one reason: I truly want to believe him. The truth has to be far more sinister than soccer, but I deserve a break. I deserve to blindly believe … in something. “Congratulations.”
    “So now you know. If I’m not here some Tuesday, it’s because we have a game, or practice, or something.”
    I’m so tired, and he feels so warm and inviting that I let it go.
    “I’ve missed you,” he whispers, dragging his fingers across my forehead, draping my hair aside.
    Oh, those fingers. Talented. Attentive.
    And he says all the right things.
    But he’s lying to me.
    I know it.
    “Baby, you wrote on your pants.”
    “Yeah.”
    I close my eyes and inhale the scent of him: musk shower gel combined with cinnamon gum. No matter how present he feels in my arms, no matter how convincing his words, I feel the distance between us. Somehow I know: he’s already gone.
    I concentrate on the feeling of his fingers drawing lines on my forehead and wonder if anyone’s ever going to paint over my tiny, red words on the bathroom walls—the words I wrote the night my father disappeared … presumably with Hannah Rynes.

B urn her in an urn. Burn her in an urn. Burn her in an urn .
    I’m digging in an open field. Icy rain pelts down on the back of my neck, chilling me to the bone.
    Mud encrusts the soles of my shoes, making them inches thick, and the loam clings to the hems of my jeans, climbs toward my knees with every shovelful.
    I don’t know where I am, but I feel like I’ve been here before. The dense air is blowing in off the lake. It smells of fresh fish and sediment, sand, clay. I can’t be too far from home.
    My hair clings to my face, and my clothing is soaked through to my flesh.
    Crucify .
    I stifle a sob and press the blade of my shovel to the wet earth.
    Crucify .
    It dawns on me: I must be digging for my father’s body.
    This must be where he is. Must find his body. It isn’t over, until I find his body.
    Sobs rack my body. I drop my shovel to the mud and hide my face in my hands. Crucify, crucify, crucify .
    Crucify, quarter, and stone her .
    I can’t draw a breath. I listen hard. Flinch at a wave crashing on the shore. Jolt with the distant hoot of an owl in a remote tree. I see nothing but dark bleeding into the beyond.
    I spin in a circle, searching, but the night is too black. I feel my father’s presence, but can’t see him. His voice echoes off the lake. He could be anywhere. He could be nowhere. I’m numb, leaden, planted in the earth like an ancient oak tree. My roots intrude on my father’s grave, push into his remains, curl about his bones.
    Crucify, quarter, and stone her .
    No way to fight it. He’s part of me. I’m part of him.
    The ground rumbles with the thunder in the distance. My body is shaking.
    “Callie, wake up!”
    Crucify, quarter, and stone her .
    “Callie!”
    I gasp and grab at salvation.
    “Callie.”
    “Help me,” I say.
    Fingers close around my forearm, as I hold tight to whatever I’m grasping.
    “Goddamn, dude. What the hell were you dreaming about?”
    My eyes peel open and adjust to my dim surroundings. I’m in Lindsey’s room, in her queen-sized bed, lying next to her, grasping her wrist with a white-knuckled grip. I’m wearing a tank top and Elijah’s flannel boxers; she’s wearing a T-shirt that reads I’m skilled and navy-blue tick-striped boyshort panties. For a minute, I’m confused, but then I remember: I couldn’t be alone. It’s always hardest to sleep on nights I’ve seen Elijah. It’s almost as if our brief encounters only serve as reminders of how alone I am once we part ways.
    When I’d shown up at her door last night, Lindsey had pulled back her covers—“Snuggle”—and I’d crawled into her bed. It’s a little weird that we sleep together sometimes,