Soul Catcher Read Online Free

like pills, and had this crazy fantasy of building a big geodesic dome for no apparent reason.
    ‘Take a hike, Scottie!’ Patrick said.
    ‘Hike to where?’
    ‘To the moon for all I care.’
    ‘Hmm. I don’t know if I could get there in time.’
    ‘In time for what?’ I asked, knowing what the answer would be.
    ‘1969!’
    We laughed.
    ‘What happened in 1969?’ Patrick asked.
    Scottie beamed. He folded his short arms over his rotund stomach. ‘Nixon was President and To Tell The Truth went off the air.’
    ‘Good,’ Patrick said. ‘Now leave us alone.’
    Another couple down the fence called him over and he waddled away, singing, ‘To the moon, to the moon, to the moon!’
    By now it was a quarter to ten. Patrick sighed, rolled his eyes and pulled me to him in a hug. He kissed my neck and from there moved with tiny gentle kisses over my cheek to my mouth. I puckered my lips to let him know it was all right. He pressed his lips hard against mine, flattening them, and I felt his tongue running over my teeth. After a minute he slipped his tongue right into my mouth. The sensation was not as strange as I had expected it would be; I knew how my own tongue felt and his felt about the same, just a little thicker and wetter. The real difference was having two tongues in my mouth at one time. They moved in a kind of dance. Kissing Patrick for the first time was like underwater ballet: grace without gravity: heaven: dreams. For me, this was the music of Grove: Patrick and our late-night, speechless harmony.
    But dreams are only that, dreams. There was so much I didn’t know. I didn’t know that failures of self could qualify love, nor that love could contain them. I didn’t know that Patrick had his own crazy dream, and that it would come to involve me. And I didn’t know how soon.

THREE
    I t was on a brilliant October afternoon that I first spiralled into Patrick’s world. Red and yellow and orange leaves basked in the clearest of light. We went to our afternoon activities as usual. Gwen was with us. She and I were taking ceramics, and Patrick was taking basketball. The gym was next to the shed where ceramics was taught, across the street from central campus. Crossing that road was the one time, other than the weekly trip to the mall, that you were technically off campus without breaking any rules. We always got a thrill crossing it and would walk very slowly. Sometimes Patrick would walk back and forth until a car came. It was one of our jokes.
    Once across, Gwen ran off to the whitewashed shed where Louise taught ceramics. Gwen liked to be on time. Louise, who was also the French teacher and dorm mother of Lower Girls, was engaged to marry Jimmy, the basketball coach, math teacher and dorm father of Upper Girls. Gwen had a theory that if she kept in ‘ultra good standing’ with Louise, positive (meaning lenient) dorm treatment by Jimmy would naturally follow. I think Gwen was also careful about spending too much time with Patrick and me. She would join us in the Smoking Circle or at the canteen and then abruptly leave. Most of my friendship with Gwen took place at night,after lights-out, in our closet. We would close the door, turn on the light, and sit facing each other on the floor in our nightgowns. We’d talk. Other than Patrick, a frequent topic was a boy named John. He was tall and skinny, wore raggedy jeans and had long stringy blond hair. He reminded me of the grubby kids from my hometown who would hang out, cursing at traffic and smoking pot. Of course, that was the kind of boy Gwen liked, the dangerous, risky type. But we couldn’t tell if John liked her back. We would mull over these and other life issues until we were too tired, and then we’d turn off the light and slip into our beds.
    Patrick’s best friend, besides me, was Eddie. He was short and flabby and an obnoxious jerk, as far as I was concerned. He was always telling dirty jokes, which I ignored and Gwen rebutted with sharp remarks