Read Kiss the Morning Star for Free Online Page B

all vanishes; once again, the ideas are nothing but a vaguely annoying hum in the cavern of my vacant skull. But sitting here—sipping coffee with Kat—our future is any one of a thousand crazy lines snaking off in all directions. Maybe that’s enough.
    I pull out my phone and text my father. I think of how I felt on the road, like I was solid and real for once. Maybe it’s enough just to move. I send it. I can be all zen and stuff, too. Maybe my dad could journey along with me, if he’d only get out of that damn bed.
    “You looked like your old self for a minute there.” Kat frowns, looking up from the map and into my face. “Your eyes,” she whispers. There is a long silence.
    “What?” I shift uncomfortably in the booth, my bare legs sticking to the vinyl seat. “What is it?”
    Kat shakes her head. “I don’t know. Your eyes were happy. You…do you ever forget about it, like I did just now?”
    “Forget about it?”
    Kat takes my hand, squeezes it a little. “You look like her, you know. Especially lately, the way you’ve been wearing those little scarves to pull your hair back.”
    The scarves. I tug at the back of my kerchief with my free hand as a memory surfaces—from maybe my sophomore year—our faces side by side in a mirror. My mother’s eyes, with that strange reproachful look she sometimes wore.
    “Your hair could be so stunning if you’d take care of it,” she had said, as she smoothed her hands over my frizzy mop, trying to twist it up into something sophisticated. “Here, what if we wrap one of my scarves”—she plucked a green silk from the basket where she kept them—“and you know your hair will get darker, more auburn like mine. It will be less…” She wrinkled up her nose and put her face beside mine in the mirror, leaving the distasteful adjective to my imagination. “See? You could be so pretty, Anna Banana.”
    “ Whatever .” I jerk my hand away from Kat. My memories of my mother are all kneaded through with that twisted chest feeling, the one that makes it hard to breathe.
    Kat stares down at her empty fingers. “I guess I can see why you’d be angry at God.” Her voice is quiet, thoughtful.
    “I’m not angry, Kat.” My tone is about twice as bitter as I would like it to be. I fiddle with the empty creamer container for a moment, waiting out the silence that follows. A silence that is unrelenting.
    I mean, okay, maybe she’s a little bit right. I’m pretty pissed, to be honest. But not…not at God. I’m pissed at those kids for messing around with fire underneath our stairs. I’m pissed at myself for acting like I did that night, for not waking up in time to change what happened. And one more thing. My face burns. “I’m pissed at my dad for sleeping in his study that night. For not getting her out.” I grab for my coffee cup, and the lukewarm coffee sloshes out on my hand. Kat hands me a napkin in silence.
    I laugh, but this time there’s no joy in it. “I didn’t really realize that.” I mean, I knew I was mad at myself, but not him. “He’s so crushed by all this. What kind of a monster am I to be angry with him?” Tears slide out of my eyes, and I stab at them furiously with the coffee-sodden napkin. I can’t believe I’m crying, right in the middle of this stupid greasy spoon.
    “Anna babe, you’re no monster.” Kat reaches out and brushes her fingers across my cheek. I can’t help it; I push her hand out of the way and try to cover my eyes with both hands, but she won’t leave me alone. “Anna, stop hiding from me.” Her fingers close around my wrist, and she pulls my hand to her mouth. She kisses two of my fingertips, softly, her eyes closed. Then she places my hand on her cheek, holding it there with both of her own hands, looking intently at me from behind the dark curtain of her hair.
    I am helpless, helpless. “Not hiding.” My lips form the words, but the sound is missing.
    Tears well up. I want to brush them away, but she