Read Beneath a Meth Moon for Free Online Page A

fast enough, flipped high enough, the image of water pouring over Pass Christian would erase itself, melt into the spinning inside my head and disappear. It never did.
    Then I was in Galilee, spinning in front of a long line of girls, cartwheeling and back-flipping and throwing my hands into the air until the captain of the squad said,
Well, duh! Hell yes on you!
And just like that, I was a Tiger, dressed in black and orange, running out onto the basketball court behind Kaylee, my pom-poms high in the air.
    And always, always, there is Kaylee—my reader, my neighbor, my best friend—close to me.
    Stop, look and listen! We are the mighty Tigers!
    Stop, look and listen! We are the mighty Tigers!
    Stop!
    And then T-Boom is running onto the court, number twenty-three, eleventh-grade co-captain.
    Give us some more of that Boom-Boom!
    T-Boom with his hands up, high-fiving the other players as he runs through the double line of them.
    His arms are long and pale. When he gets close to me, I see there’s a dark blue bowl tattooed on the left one and below that bowl, in thick letters, the word
gumbo.
Gumbo like a dream coming toward me.
    Who will stand beside you, Laurel?
    Then I’m in M’lady’s kitchen, Pass Christian heat thick around us and the pot bubbling, steam rising from it, the smell of it so
now,
so right here.
T-Boom, take me home . . .
Time stops here.
    The crowd is loud but then it’s not. The people are all around us and then they’re not—just me and T-Boom, with no sound, no people, between us. Just me and T-Boom, seeing each other—not for the first time, really, but, yes, for the first time. Because all those times before this night, all through the fall and early winter, he was just another guy on the team, just Boom-Boom, Number Twenty-Three, taking foul shots from the line, dribbling the ball down the court. Before, he was just jump shots and layups, laughing with his teammates while we practiced cheer after cheer after cheer.
    T-Boom, please take me home . . .
And then the crowd is back, like a loud wind blowing around me.
Stop, look and listen!
We’re yelling and we’re stomping and clapping and throwing our pom-poms in the air and remembering to smile, but there is that word, and there is T-Boom, circling around me.
Stop!
    I think he likes you,
Kaylee whispers each time T-Boom looks my way. He’s home to me, and I don’t even know him. He’s salt sea air and hot sand. He’s good things in a bowl and memory.

laurel
    YOU’RE THE NEW ONE, aren’t you?
T-Boom asked me.
You coming with us over to the 7-Eleven?
    We had just won against Donnersville, and me and the other cheerleaders were walking out of the gym beside the basketball players. Kaylee’s mother was going to pick us up later, and I was sleeping over at her house. Kaylee’s eyes got big, and she nudged me, whispered,
I told you he likes you! Say yes!
So I said,
Yeah.
What else did I know that night but “yeah” for anything T-Boom wanted, anything he asked.
    You like to party?
he asked.
    Yeah.
    And there it was, my cheeks burning up, T-Boom smiling down at me, the excitement coming from everywhere.
    A counselor at Second Chances said,
Go backwards in your life. Start from the place before the first time you ever saw the moon.
    Stop!
    And I’m smiling now as Kaylee pulls my ponytail.
It’s that blond hair,
she whispers.
Boys go crazy for blondes
.
    But it’s more white than blond. White like my mother’s and maybe M’lady’s before hers became blue. So white that people ask again and again,
Is that your natural hair color?
    Black and orange pom-poms bouncing against our legs as we run out of the gym—
We are the mighty Tigers!
    And when I look back, Jesse Jr. and my daddy are still in the stands, blowing me good-bye kisses.
We’ll see you tomorrow
and two thumbs up from my daddy, his grin wide.
Good job, Laur!
    Good job,