Local Girl Swept Away Read Free Page A

because you aren’t going to win.”
    It broke my heart over and over, the way Finn couldn’t talk about Lorna in the past tense. But at least we were both standing up now, walking around, impersonating normal people. Those first weeks Finn and I were inseparable. We’d both had an amputation, but if we leaned on each other, we could limp along. I couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be going through this alone. And sometimes there were brief moments when I almost forgot about Lorna and allowed myself to feel just slightly joyful about having Finn to myself. Spending hour after hour with Finn, even this hollow, miserable shadow of Finn, was almost a dream come true. But it was a dream that arose out of a nightmare, and I felt guilty taking even a tiny bit of pleasure in it.
    When we walked down the hall at the high school, people smiled at us, but almost never stopped to talk. Sometimes Tony Perry or another one of Finn’s friends from the basketball team came over and silently smacked him on the back or shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind, but it aggravated me. Why would you hit somebody who was already in pain? I suppose it meant,
I’m male and I don’t know how to talk about anything emotional, so I’m just going to pound on you
. I understood that people didn’t know what to say, but I appreciated the ones who at least made an effort. “I’m so sorry,” was enough and didn’t beg for a response.
    I didn’t have a lot of friends. Neither did Lorna or Lucas, for that matter. We didn’t need them. Finn played sports, so he knew pretty much everybody. If he hadn’t been exclusively with Lorna, he would have been extremely popular—he had all the attributes: looks, brains, athletic ability, even money. But popularity was a goal for suckers—Lorna taught us that. We had more. We had a gang of amigos, a winning team, an endless party, an exclusive club, a band of like-minded souls, a full circle.
    But now that Lorna was gone and Lucas was AWOL (showing up at school just long enough to take tests and then racing back home so he didn’t have to talk to anyone) I was lonely. Of course I had Finn, but he was hardly the comrade he used to be either, so I was grateful when Charlotte Mancini came over to us in the cafeteria one day.
    “Hi, you two. Mind if I join you?”
    “Hey, Char,” I said. “Yeah, sit with us.”
    Charlotte and I had been friends when we were little kids, before Lorna came to the elementary school. After that, we drifted apart, but I’d always liked Char. She was a quiet kid when we used to hang out together, but she’d blossomed the past few years since she started getting a few parts in school plays. It was funny, but the minute Charlotte sat down, I felt a wave of comfort, almost relief, wash over me.
    Finn didn’t have much to say to Char, but then, he didn’t have much to say to anybody these days.
    “I know you both must feel pretty terrible,” Charlotte said. “I wanted to say I’m sorry about what happened, and if you need anything—I don’t know what it would be, but anything—I’m here for you.”
    “Thanks,” I said, and Finn mumbled something similar under his breath.
    “Do you have jobs lined up for the summer?” she asked.
    “I don’t yet, but Finn’s working on a whale watch boat starting next week. The
Poseidon.
” For some reason I felt I had to speak for Finn, as if grief had rendered him mute.
    “Oh, Captain Fritzy’s boat?”
    Finn nodded and finally opened his mouth. “Yeah. I practically have to pay him to let me work on it, but I don’t care. I want to be out on the water.”
    “Right. I remember you always loved boats. You used to hang around on the wharf when you were a kid and watch the fishermen unload their catch,” Charlotte said. But Finn had gone back into hibernation.
    “So, Jackie, you’re not working at the Riptide this summer?”
    I was surprised Charlotte knew where I’d waitressed last year, but then, it’s a small town.