Читать книгу Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls - Lynn Weingarten - Страница 7

CHAPTER 3

1 YEAR, 6 MONTHS, 4 DAYS EARLIER

It was a relief to know she didn’t have to explain. Not about the ache in her chest, the pit in her stomach, where it was coming from, and how much she didn’t want to talk about it – Delia would just get it. She always did.

June imagined what Delia was about to say, maybe something along the lines of, “Parents. Fuck ’em,” or “Only boring people have perfect lives.” Delia could make you feel like the things you didn’t have were things you didn’t want anyway. She changed the whole world like that.

So that’s what June was expecting, standing out there in the summer sun, waiting for Delia to fix this.

Delia tipped her head to the side as if she was considering something. She raked her curls behind her ear, hiked up her low-slung cutoff shorts, then reached out and took June’s hand. She squeezed it tight, but still she didn’t say anything at all. She just grinned and waggled her eyebrows.

Then she started to run.

And because she was holding June’s hand so tightly, and June’s hand was attached to June’s arm, which was attached to June’s body, June had no choice but to run with her. She stumbled at first, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she plunged toward the ground, then righted herself. Delia was ahead of her, arm stretched back, racing across the empty field, legs pumping, pulling June right along.

“Wait!” June begged. “Please!” June was in flip-flops. They were flapping against the grass until she accidentally ran right out of one of them. “I lost my shoe!”

But Delia didn’t wait or stop.

“Fuck your shoe!” Delia called out.

So what could she do? June kicked off the other one and pumped her legs. When was the last time she ran as fast as she could?

“But where are we GOING?” June shouted.

“WE’RE JUST RUNNING,” Delia shouted. Trees zipping by them, they were flying through the air.

The pit in June’s stomach dissolved, sweat broke out along her back, her lungs were bursting. But still they ran, giddy and breathless, the pieces of June’s life dropping away bit by bit until she was nothing but legs in motion, arms, a heart, a hand, held. A body, stumbling, tripping, almost falling. Except she wouldn’t fall, that’s the thing. Delia wouldn’t let her.