Away Read Free Page B

hands on me, girl. ”
    My temper breaks. The crowd gasps as I lunge forward, grab Marcus by the arms and lift all three hundred pounds of him up, his feet dangling.
    “I’m warning you now. If you ever, ever touch my girlfriend,” I say, my voice low. “There won’t be a hole you can crawl into that I won’t find you.”
    I throw him down to the ground and he goes sprawling. He gets up slowly, his fat making him scramble awkwardly to his feet, the blood running rapidly down his face now. He spits on the ground, wiping the dirt off of him from my throw. “Trash, all of you,” he says before stumbling away, back to his wreck of a car to amble recklessly down the road.
    “I’m calling the police,” one of the Radison’s says, and then everyone is gathering around Rosemary and Donna, asking if they’re alright. Donna’s beside herself. She’s sobbing uncontrollably, babbling nonsense to people who are probably doing more harm than good. Rosemary is telling people she’s fine, saying that she’s alright and that nothing’s wrong, but I know better. Rosemary won’t fall apart until she’s out of all the eyesight of all these people and her mother. I have to get her away before she goes completely numb, and then even shuts me out.
    I cut through the crowd and go to Peter. “I’m going to get Rosie out of here,” I tell him and he nods, overwhelmed with trying to calm Donna. Wordlessly I grab Rosemary’s hand and she takes it without resistance. Michael, Michelle and Levi are all standing nearby, waiting for instruction.
    “Leave us be for an hour, guys,” I tell them, and Michelle nods as she escorts the other two away, all of them muttering to each other. Rosemary is staring straight ahead, not saying anything. I bend down, pick her up in my arms and start carrying her, saying, “Come on Rosie. We’re going for a walk.”
    She lays her head on my chest and I slip quietly away from the party, into the cornfields. Once I’ve carried her for about five minutes through them I turn onto a small dirt path that goes deep into the woods.
    She makes no comment all this time and my worst fears have been realized. She’s too broken to cry. If I don’t find a way to make her feel better, she’ll be like this for a week, or longer. Last time she didn’t say anything to anyone for three days. “Let me see you smile,” I say, jiggling her in my arms. She looks up at me and gives a grin, but it’s only for me.
    The land goes into a slant and soon I’m carrying her uphill. “Do you want me to get down?” she asks, and I’m relieved. She’s finally talking.
    “Nah,” I say. “You weigh nothing. It’s so easy to carry you. Besides, I like holding you.”
    A genuine smile this time, thank God. We reach our destination, the top of a mossy cliff overlooking miles upon miles of farmland, Rosie’s favorite thing in the whole world. Right below us is-
    “My farmhouse,” Rosemary says, beaming. A white, falling apart piece of garbage sits in the middle of huge plots of tilled ground. For years Rosemary has been obsessed with that house.
    “Do you remember the night we met?” Rosemary asks and I set her down on a log, sitting next to her.
    I make a sarcastic noise. “There’s no way I can forget. Michael had to practically drag me along to that party. He promised nothing was going to happen, and then he embarrasses me by puking in the bonfire.”
    “And Michelle made me go to it too,” Rosemary says. “I just wanted to stay home.”
    “I guess I just felt comfortable with you right from the start. The moment I looked at you, I got serious butterflies. You were beautiful.”
    She chuckles, looking down at the house. “Someday I’m gonna buy that place and restore it, and live in it. It’d be perfect.”
    “I don’t get why you want to purchase that old thing. Nobody’s looked at it for years. It’s got more work in it than it’s worth.”
    “It means something. Ever since I was a little girl I