How It Ends by Catherine Lo (classic novels to read .txt) 📗

in here,” he muses, getting up to take a look around. “You haven’t fully unpacked yet, I see.” He gestures to a stack of boxes in the corner of my room.

I shrug, embarrassed. “I don’t even know what’s in those boxes.”

“It’s funny, isn’t it? . . . When we were packing, everything seemed so important. But now that we’re here, there are boxes and boxes of things we haven’t even touched.”

It feels weird to have Dad look around my room like this. Scary. There’s so much of my life I keep hidden from him that it’s terrifying to have him show an interest.

“Still, it would be good for you to get more settled here. Put some of your drawings up on the walls, make this room yours.” He comes closer to my bed to check out the one thing I’ve pinned up. The Alice in Wonderland quote Jess gave me: “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” I can barely breathe as he reads it. It feels like a million years ago that I spent that afternoon in Jessie’s room.

He smiles sadly at the quote. “Very true.” He looks at me over the top of his glasses, as though seeing me for the first time. “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

Instinctively, I reach for my necklace, and my whole body goes cold.

It isn’t there.

What the . . .

Dad keeps talking, but I can’t hear him over the roaring in my ears. What happened to my necklace? I close my eyes and try to think. I know I put it on this morning. I remember debating it. I didn’t want my mom involved in the whole mess, but I needed a piece of her there with me. Regret eats away at my insides.

“Honey? Are you okay?”

“I don’t . . . I don’t feel very well.” I lie down on the bed and run my hands down the sheets, praying that my fingers will catch on the chain of my necklace.

Dad comes over and feels my forehead. “You don’t have a fever, but you’re very pale.” He pulls up the covers. “Get some rest, Button. We’ll chat more later.” He kisses my forehead and slips out of the room.

The second the door clicks shut, I leap out of bed and tear off the sheets. I search them like a madwoman, feeling every inch of the fabric. I rip off my clothes and search them, too. Then I rifle through the bag I took to the clinic, hunting through every pocket and trying to convince myself that I took off the necklace for safekeeping and just don’t remember it. I search the folds of the T-shirt I wore and then sneak downstairs to search my sneakers and jacket. Nothing.

Back in my room, I go over every square inch of carpet and all around the bed at least five times. Then it’s back downstairs, retracing my steps. The necklace isn’t on the stairs or in the front hall. It’s not on the porch or on the sidewalk or even in the grass. It’s not in the driveway or in the car.

The car is where Madge finds me. I’m running my hands frantically over and under the seats, whispering prayers and promises to God if he’ll just let me find the necklace. I’ll snap out of this. I’ll change my ways. I’ll make myself perfect and stop pouting and just concentrate on being a good daughter and friend and student and person. Just please, please, please let me find the necklace.

But I don’t find it.

I can’t sleep. I can’t think. The clinic won’t open again until tomorrow. What if it’s not there? What if I’ve lost it forever? I can’t imagine ever looking my dad in the eyes and telling him that I lost Mom’s necklace. It’s all he had left of my mother, and he gave it to me. He trusted me with her most valuable possession, and I lost it. Not just lost it, but lost it while at an abortion clinic killing the baby I should never have been pregnant with. He’ll never forgive me. Why should he? I’ll never forgive myself.

Jessie

I pushed my way through the hallway, searching for Charlie. He’s been waiting for me by my locker every day this week, but it feels too good to be true, and my heart skitters each morning until I catch sight of him.

The crowd parted and there he was, leaning back against my locker door. When he caught sight of me, a smile lit up his face and my knees went weak with the sheer unexpected joy of having someone so happy to see me.

“Hey,” he said, pushing off my locker and handing me his phone. “How’s your morning?”

I looked at the screen, open to a list of movie times. “What’s this?”

“Be my date. This Friday night. You can pick any movie you like—girly, action, horror, you name it.”

I bit my lip and handed him back the phone. “Would you be upset if we didn’t go to the movies?”

He blinked in surprise and took a step back. “No. Uh, that’s okay, I guess. I just thought . . .”

“Wait until you hear my suggestion before you say it’s okay.” I laughed. “Because this might well be the lamest thing you’ve ever heard.”

“Lay it on me.”

“So, my family has this tradition . . .” I put my hands over my face, suddenly mortified that I was actually doing this. “It’s called Avery Family Games Night, and it’s way more dorky than you can even imagine. There are tacos and board games, and even sombreros.” My face blazed with embarrassment.

“Are you asking me to come to Avery Family Games Night?”

“Um . . . yes?”

He enveloped me in a hug, his laughter vibrating against my chest. “I’d love to,” he rumbled. He pulled back and looked into my eyes, and I’d have melted into a puddle on the floor if he hadn’t been holding me up.

Oh my God, he’s going to kiss me, I thought, just as