Read Chaos Theory for Free Online Page B

“Hey. If we get our cars out of here, I’ll take you home, okay? If not, we’ll be sleeping right next to you.”
    With a nervous grin, she sends off a text to her mom.
    Mom and I came in two cars, assuming that if the blizzard held off, she’d stick around to gab with other riders. When it’s time to leave, Peggy leads the way in her big dually pickup, making it down the curving drive and then plowing up the rise to the county gravel road. Snow spews out behind her. She waits for us, safely out of our way. Her tail lights wink through the blowing snow and the open barb and chain-link sliding gates. The two panels are rarely closed. Mom’s SUV struggles, but she guns it, making it out. Trish and I grin at each other as I floor it too, sending EB roaring up the little hill. Like the trooper she is, EB charges through the snow, although her for-once-pumping-hot-air heater abruptly stops working in spiteful retaliation.
    Through a frosted window, Swaps-Stall-Cleaning-for-Ride-Time waves to my mom and we head for her home through unplowed streets. I follow her instructions to a 1970s duplex. The front porch light is on.
    â€œGeez, how are you going to get inside?” The snow’s drifted up to the door handle, and the attached single-car garage looks like a postcard from Switzerland.
    â€œThere’s a side door. I’ll get in.” As she picks up her riding helmet from the floorboard, she stops and reaches for something, turning it over in her riding gloved hands. “What are you doing with Julia’s photo?”
    â€œWhat?” I pull off one of my winter mittens and take it from her.
    â€œJulia Jamison. That’s her school photo from eighth grade. What are you doing with it?”
    What an innocent face. Most school photos are stupid and ugly, but this girl’s an angel. Her curly blond hair caps her head like a halo and she has one of those Irish noses that tip up. Her eyes are the kind of blue in fairy tales. They’re Daniel’s eyes. Not only does she look pretty, even in a school sweatshirt, but you can tell she’d been bubbling with laughter when they snapped the photo.
    This little girl died from an overdose using Daniel’s illegal drug stash? How could such an angelic face like this commit suicide?
    How does Daniel live with what happened?
    Trish starts crying. “What are you doing with it? You don’t even know her.”
    â€œI don’t know,” I stutter.
    She jumps out of the car saying,   “You’re just like them. All those crazy people that came to her funeral bawling. They didn’t know her! They didn’t care!” Then Trish takes off through the deep snow.
    I turn the school photo over and read the inscription,  I love you Daniel and will miss you! I hate Dad for sending you away!   Every inch of the photo’s back is covered in tiny X’s and O’s. It had obviously fallen out of Daniel’s wallet when I’d thrown it at him.
    ***
    Sunday, I hole up with Mom and Dad, spending all day thinking about Daniel and Julia. At 8 p.m., I phone Peggy to get Swaps-Stall-Cleaning-for-Ride-Time’s phone number and then punch in the numbers to call her. Finding Julia’s photo in my car has thrown her. She tries to put me off.
    â€œWhy ask me about Julia? She’s gone. I don’t want to talk about her. You didn’t even know her!”
    â€œYou’re right. I didn’t.”
    â€œYou had her school photo in your car. What kind of sick person are you? Leave her be.” Trish speaks faster and faster, ending that last bit like an accusation.
    Afraid she’ll hang up, I say, “Trish, it’s complicated, but I promise I don’t have some morbid fascination with death or anything. I have a reason.”
    I want more data about Daniel’s sister. Trish has answers. “Listen, I know this hurts, but can we talk? Wednesday night at the stables, okay?”