Read Taken by Storm for Free Online

the kitchen.
     
    Great. i bolt into the bathroom. i look like i walked out of a zombie flick. i turn on the water so Gram doesn’t hear me puking.
     
    She pounds on the door. “Michael, she’s waiting.”
     
    Why am i doing this? Yesterday on the bus, i felt massively strong facing down Troy for this girl. i don’t think that’s what Stan meant with his pep talk, but it was a good change from massively destroyed. But whoa, do i want to spend time with her? It was easy online. No eyes. No faces. No feelings. i don’t know. Maybe if she shows up in that jacket.
     
    i turn my back on Gram’s safe pink bathroom and follow her out the door.
     
    Leesie jumps down from a white pickup. Loose hair, leather jacket. Good start.
     
    “So what’s defuddled ? You promised.” She’s speeding her truck down a country highway, and i figure the awkward silence has gone on long enough. i take the crumpled lunch bag that she gave me with her e-mail written on it out of my pocket and hold it out to her. There’s lists of words and short lines scribbled all over it.
     
    “ Defuddled? Opposite of befuddled .” The corners of her mouth turn up a bit, but she doesn’t look at me. “Isn’t that obvious? I’m writing a poem—”
     
    “Is there an assignment i missed?”
     
    “No.” Still eyes front.
     
    “You write poems for fun?”
     
    “I like words—trying to fit them to what I see and feel.” Now the glance. “Weird, I know.”
     
    i stare out the window. “i’ve been writing a lot lately.”
     
    “I’ve seen you at school. I like your black binder. Nice size. Eight by eleven is so bulky. And it even zips.” Then she realizes she basically just fessed up to stalking me. Pink cheeks, eyes glued to the road.
     
    “That’s my dive log. Waterproof. Easy to pack.”
     
    “Cool.” Her eyes dart in my direction again. “I’d like to read your stuff.”
     
    Dream on. “So your poem—”
     
    “Right. One of the lines is no longer befuddled .” Her voice softens. “Don’t you think just defuddled sounds better?”
     
    “But it isn’t a word.”
     
    She pulls a cute scowl. “Doesn’t matter in a poem.”
     
    “So who’s no longer unfuddled? You?”
     
    “ De -fuddled.” Her eyes flick over my way again and then back to the road. “My grandmother.” She swallows hard. “She died last spring.”
     
    “Hey, i’m sorry.” i feel like a creep for prying and razzing.
     
    “We nursed her at our house for three years. I watched her suffer, and all I could do was hold a straw to her lips and smooth Vaseline on them when they got dry. She passed away quietly one night while my mother and I held her hands. Peaceful. Beautiful. Not scary like I thought her death would be. I thought I loved my grandmother before she got sick, but now I love her more than ever. I know it was a release, but it didn’t make letting her go any easier.”
     
    i stare out my window at cement grain elevator towers. The hilly fields behind them are bare. Dad always said he loved the ocean because he grew up here where the wind made waves with soil. Maybe when they are full of wheat, it’s nice, but now? I don’t see it. Can’t dive in dirt. Even the blazing color of the leaves means they are all just dying.
     
    The awkward silence replays. i set her old lunch bag on the seat.
     
    Leesie clears her throat. “That heavy, sad feeling—”
     
    i nod like she’s got me in a trance.
     
    “It’s not as intense now, like—”
     
    Me. She doesn’t have to say it.
     
    “It waxes and wanes. I don’t think it will ever go away. I don’t think I want it to.”
     
    What does she know about it? Her grandmother? Please. Take me home, chick, i don’t care how damn good you smell, how great you look when you smile, how soft those lips might be, how those jeans make your butt amazing. i grunt, “What happened to pity free?”
     
    “That was stupid.” She keeps her eyes on the road. “Sorry to intrude.” Her