The After Girls Read Online Free

“No.”
    The line was quiet a moment, as if Grace were waiting for her to say something else.
    Then she spoke. “I need you to come in tomorrow,” Grace stammered, her voice cracking, as if she were about to cry.
    “Come in?” Ella asked, and for a second she really didn’t know what Grace could mean.
    “The
café
,” she said, and she almost sounded annoyed. Angry. “We need you here. Please.”
    “Oh,” Ella said. Maybe it was the dream, but Trail Mix seemed far away now. Fake, almost, like a coffee shop on TV.
    She and Astrid had practically grown up there. They’d been hanging out behind the counter since they were twelve, long before they knew the difference between steel cut and regular oatmeal, agave nectar and sugar, like all of the regulars did. The old owner had died, and Grace inherited the place when they were fifteen — ever since then she and Astrid had been working there. It was perfect. It drew enough backpackers from off the Appalachian Trail to give them plenty of eye candy. And there were lots of kids from school who came by, too. A dream job.
    “So will you do it?” Grace asked, and Ella almost expected tears to seep right through the phone. “I don’t know what else to do.”
    Ella imagined Grace, so beautiful and lithe, just like Astrid, wasting away in the house. Astrid’s dad had died years ago in a car wreck, long before Ella and Astrid became friends, and now Astrid was gone, too. Grace was all alone now. It must be unbearable.
    “What time?” Ella asked, stalling. She heard Grace’s heavy breathing on the other end.
    “Seven o’clock.” Ella felt her heartbeat quicken because she knew that she didn’t have a choice. Maybe because she needed the money or maybe because she felt bad for Grace, or maybe, just maybe, because being there could help her learn something — anything — that would help her understand.
    “Seven,” Ella repeated. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be there.”
    “Thank you,” Grace said, relief flooding her voice. “I knew you would help me, Ella.”
    “Of course,” Ella said. “See you tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow,” Grace echoed back.
    And Ella could still hear her heavy breathing as she hung up the phone.

CHAPTER TWO
    Sydney decided to go to the party alone.
    It was the first big party in over a month, and she’d begged Ella to go. They needed something to take their minds off of Astrid, off of the funeral, off of these last few miserable days. But Ella had said she was tired, that she had to be up early for work the next day. She hadn’t even tried to conceal the disdain in her voice when Sydney had asked her to at least consider having some fun.
    Ella was going back to the coffee shop, back to a job that would constantly remind her of Astrid. Sydney was going to get drunk. And somehow
she
was the weird one.
    Max’s parents were gone until Sunday. They were often gone like that: checking B&B’s off some Best-of-the-Appalachians list. They’d altogether given up taking their children with them once they were old enough to take care of themselves — Max and his older brother had always seemed sort of like an afterthought to them.
    He was who-knows-how-many-beers in when she got there. So was everyone else: scattered across the couch, dotting the staircase, bodies pulsing, protruding from the kitchen. Some of them had been at the funeral, and some of them hadn’t, but she knew that there was no one in the entire house who felt anything like her. That’s why she needed to drink.
    A few weeks ago, she and Ella and Astrid would have pre-gamed beforehand, passed wine around the cabin, and stumbled in together. But tonight, Sydney walked calmly, steadily towards the first sight of liquor. By herself.
    “Syd!” Carter yelled as she passed the couch. He jumped up to hug her, and she let him. Carter was nice and dependable, and just a little too touchy.
    Carter let go and looked down into her eyes. “I wasn’t sure if you’d come.”
    Sydney