This Raging Light by Estelle Laure Page B

known forever is what?” He rests his head in his hands, stares at the floor. “Is she interested in me? Is she curious? This girl is incredible. Her eyes, Lucille, you should see her eyes.” I have to hold on, literally grip the couch under me, to keep from sliding myself back onto his lap. I don’t even know this person I am with him.
    His phone buzz buzzes. A text this time.
    â€œDon’t you need to get that?”
    â€œNo,” he says. “It’ll be all right.” Snaps out of whatever we were in. I am jolted. After a minute, he says, “So what’s going on with you and my sister?”
    â€œI don’t know.” Why is he asking me about this now?
    â€œYou’re not talking, right?”
    â€œNot really.”
    â€œYou threw her out,” he says. “She was trying to help.”
    â€œI threw you out too,” I say. “You’re here.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œBut what?”
    â€œI couldn’t help but come back.”
    â€œBut she could,” I say, trying not to think too hard about what he just said.
    â€œWell, you should talk to her. I think her feelings are really hurt.”
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say, “I don’t have time for all the feelings. I’m just trying to get by.” It’s only when I say it that I realize how fragile I am, how pissed off at Eden, how I don’t think it’s fair that she should have her feelings hurt when I am dealing with everything I’m dealing with.
    â€œI have something.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Give me just a second.” He quick types something that I assume is a text to Elaine while I try not to feel the sting of it, and then puts the earbuds on me. It softens me up that he does that, even though Elaine lurks between the notes. “You’re going to like it.”
    The music isn’t like anything I’ve ever heard, not my usual for sure, but I like it enough to close my eyes. When it’s over, he has his hat on, his backpack on his shoulders.
    â€œGood, right?”
    â€œYeah, good.” I hand him back his phone. “Thanks.” Everything hurts as he goes toward the door.
    He hugs me so tight on the way out. I try to press myself into him, and for a crazy second I think if I hold on tight enough, maybe I will actually become him, fade into him and none of this will matter. But in the end I am still me and he is still him, and our bodies come apart and his hand is on the doorknob, his backpack on one shoulder, the night on my face.
    Then nothing.

BDWC
(Before Dad Went Crazy)
    Parker Delaney is the farthest I’ve ever gone in the sex realm. Seems like forever ago now, back when I had Mom and Dad and I didn’t know how breakable everything is. I still thought you get a family, some clothes, a best friend, a sometimes-annoying little sister, and you go about your day until you get old enough to see what the world is really about.
    I used to spend afternoons at the park with Eden sometimes, when we still lived side by side, before Mrs. Albertson moved in. We would watch the boys play basketball—hoops, they said—and we would lie on the spinny merry-go-round, stare at the sky, talk a lot of smack.
    Parker wasn’t my boyfriend, but he was as close as I ever got, in that he was kind of regular about wanting to kiss me. It had been that way for a long time. One day I wound up behind the karate dojo right across from the park with Parker’s hand up my shirt, down my pants. So many things happened at once. Thoughts about whether or not I liked him, about whether or not it mattered, his tongue too wet, too big, not giving me the chance to catch up to it. His hands, too. He must have had eight of them, sprouting everywhere at once.
    He had this really soft hair. I wanted to run my fingers through it, to spy into him and see if anything was there, to talk to him some, but he was moving like he was