Read The Girl Most Likely To... for Free Online Page B

hollowed-out stranger who was once Riley. I think my mother is better suited for that job. We need to be getting back to town.
    She's not here, Katharine.
    Something in her father's voice made Kat freeze. She looked at him, scanning his eyes for an explanation of whatever his voice had just revealed. There was nothing.
    Where'd she go? The cafeteria?
    Her question was met by absolute silence. Kat noticed Riley raise his chin and breathe deep.
    Depends on your views, I suppose, her father said. But no religion I ever heard of offers a cafeteria option for the afterlifeit's usually just heaven or hell. If I had to pick, I'd say heaven, but then, me and the Almighty aren't exactly fishin' buddies, so what do I know?
    It felt like the floor dropped. Or the whole world. And Kat was relieved to feel Nola's steady hand at the small of her back.
    So that was all there was. That cold night when her mother shoved some cash into her hand and dismissed her own daughter like she was an annoying Jehovah's Witnessthat was all there'd ever be for them. Nothing would ever be fixed. Nothing would ever be taken back. Nothing would ever heal.
    Nola tried to direct Kat back toward the chair. Maybe you should sit down for a minute.
    Kat jerked away and took a step toward Riley. She looked up at him, furious. When? How?
    About a year ago. Cancer.
    We're not staying. Kat pushed her way toward the curtain. She had to squeeze by Riley to get out of the room, and her hand brushed the front of his upper thigh. She thought she'd die. Or collapse in a heap. But she would never/never/let either of those men see her cry.
    Her mother was dead. She'd waited too long to come home.
    Riley called after her, Kat! Please wait!
    Let her go, she heard her father say. You know she had no business coming back in the first place.

FIVE
    The night rain spat down from the sky, and the wind was cold. Kat scrunched into the neck of her jacket as she walked the cemetery rows, holding the flashlight as steady as she could, the beam landing on one headstone after the next.
    She found the words she'd been searching for on a large, oddly shaped slab of stone, the letters appearing as shadows on white marble. /BettyAnn Cavanaugh, devoted wife and mother…/ As Kat bent at the waist to look closer, the rush of pain forced her eyes shut and her mouth open. She heard a piercingly loud scream, but it was only in her head. No sound came out of her mouth. It hurt too much for soundthere wasn't sound big enough for the sorrow and regret inside her. Her mother was gone. Her mother was pinned down in this dirt, under this bizarre, misshapen headstone, Virgil's artistic vision keeping his wife in her place through all of eternity.
    Nola's hand moved along the length of Kat's spine in firm strokes. I'm sorry, hon. So sorry Kat's insides twisted. She shook her head.
    Let's get you out of the rain. Nola tried to make Kat straighten up.
    Come on, Kat. Please. We can come back in the morning and leave her some flowers.
    It took a moment, but Kat did stand up. She clicked off the flashlight they'd purchased at the Ace Hardware in Elkins, and shoved it in her jacket pocket. She looked up at the sky, gray clouds moving over an endless blackness. She wondered if that's what it felt like to be deadjust nothing. Black nothing everywhere… /Kat's mother pulled the screen door closed between them./ /I'm sorry, Katharine./ /Are you kicking me out because I'm pregnant or because I ruined his stupid sculpture of the governor's wife?/ /Her mother's mouth turned down at the corners. It was his biggest commission since his New York days./ /Kat couldn't believe her ears. Mom! He was screwing her out in his studio! Don't you even care?/ /I've never once questioned your father's behavior and now is not the time to start. It will be better if you go and let me handle him./ /Kat clutched her stomach, shaky and speechless. Her mother was trying to get rid of her. Her father was a liar and a brute and didn't love