Wonder When You’ll Miss Me Read Online Free Page A

you liked us. I don’t feel well, I whispered. My heart pounded.
    Feed the fat girl! Someone pushed me to my knees. Someone else had my arms, his nails jagged, a striped silver ring on his middle finger. Right in my ear, You tell anyone and we’ll kill you . I stared at buckles and pockets. He pinched my nose so my mouth fell open. Then the terrible sound of zippers and one after the other they came at me, chanting. Feed the fat girl! Over and over I gagged, I couldn’t breathe. We’ll tell what a slut you are. Then I was shoved to all fours. I stared at hands, at sneakers and boots, the cuffs of pants and jeans. The fatter the berry the sweeter the juice. And laughter. The fatter the berry the sweeter the juice.
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    I didn’t make it down the hill. I got halfway, and my stomach turned over. I sat hard on the ground and smelled fresh-cut grass, honeysuckle. Far away a lawn mower hummed. The field was utterly empty—the fat girl was nowhere, was gone.
    I couldn’t breathe right. I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and wished desperately for a sign, any sign that things would be okay. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and yelped.
    Tony Giobambera leapt away from me. “Sorry,” he mumbled, uneasy. “I saw you sit. You okay?”
    â€œYeah,” I bellowed. I tried to say, “I’m fine,” but instead began to cry.
    â€œHere,” he said, and helped me to my feet. “Here.”
    He put an arm around my shoulders and led me to the bleachers. I smelled him: cigarettes, sweat, something musky and male. We sat side by side and I was drowning and floating all at once. I didn’t know what to do.
    â€œUm,” he said. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You all right?”
    His gravelly voice calmed me. I groped around for an answer. “Sure,” I said, my own voice squeaky and weird. We sat quietly like that for a minute. He looked out over the field. I studied his clear blue eyes and bumpy skin. His lips were perfect and full. One big black curl arced over his left brow.
    The silence squeezed at me and I felt like I should say something, anything. “I’m real sorry about your girlfriend,” I said.
    â€œOh.” He looked at me quizzically. “Yeah…” Then he took a deep breath. “Listen, about what happened…” His voice trailed off. “That was really fucked up is all,” he said.
    I wasn’t sure what he meant. But my silence held three things: the desire to preserve that perfect, unspoiled moment, and the knowledge that everything in me that hurt wanted a say right then, and how afraid I was of what would happen if I let it.
    I looked out over the field. Far away, by the line of trees I saw a large blue shape spin and whirl, then fall down. She stayed like that for a minute, then rose, lurched wildly, and spun again.
    Tony Giobambera lit a cigarette and offered me one. I hesitated, then took it and leaned into the flame he cupped.
    I dragged and exhaled. My head fluttered lightly off my shoulders. A bug buzzed by. I swatted it away. The fat girl spun and fell.
    I felt the air around us charge with energy, atoms bombarding on all sides. “What do you dream?” I asked him, and he squinted at me.
    â€œDumb things, mostly,” he said, like it was the most normal question in the world. “Sometimes dragons or really stupid shit, cars, school…”
    I took a deep breath and tilted my head towards him. I tapped my cigarette and watched the ash tumble to the ground.
    â€œWhat about you?”
    I felt the fat girl’s knife in my pocket, its weight solid and warm. I thought about my most frequent dream, where stars peppered the sky and I stood on a patch of grass, swelling, and rose above everything until I was immense and powerful and threw fear into the hearts of those below. I was an enormous hungry moon, able to swallow the world. I hovered there, swaying back and forth, but I