Read The Half Life of Molly Pierce for Free Online

inviting me.”
    “I didn’t plan on it,” I say.
    “You left five minutes before the bell rang. Couldn’t you have waited?”
    “I did?” I say, and then I nod my head vigorously, realizing that I’m supposed to know this. “Obviously, sure, I did.”
    “Who texted you, anyway?”
    “What?”
    “You got a message on your phone. I saw you read it. And then you wrote something back and you just got up and left.”
    This was interesting. I’d never pressed my friends for information about how I acted when I lost time. When I tried it on Hazel, she saw through me in a second. I’m apparently not very good at pretending to be normal.
    I don’t remember getting a text message.
    “Unrelated,” I say unconvincingly. What else am I supposed to say? Was it related? I have absolutely no idea.
    Erie raises her eyebrows. “Doubt it,” she says.
    “Suit yourself.”
    “Let me see your phone, then.”
    Should I? Not like I can really stop her from just grabbing it, anyway; it’s on the desk and she’s faster than me. Besides, maybe I’ll find out something interesting. I nod my chin at it. She reaches and picks it up before I can change my mind, and starts scrolling eagerly through my messages. Erie respects privacy as much as my parents respect an offhanded joke about suicide. Which is to say, you know, not at all.
    Then, crestfallen, she says, “You deleted it! Not fair, Molly!”
    I go with my safest response: a shrug.
    “There’s nothing here from yesterday morning,” she continues. “You’re tricky. Who are you talking to that you don’t want me to know about?”
    “Your boyfriend, maybe.”
    She throws a pillow at me. I catch it and hug it to my stomach. I feel weird. What did Erie see? Who sent me a message? Why had it made me leave?
    “Oh, incoming,” she says suddenly, twisting my phone around so I can see the screen.
    “Who is it? Luka? I was supposed to call him.”
    “Private,” she says.
    Private? Who do I know that’s private?
    “Oh,” she continues. That weird expression again. Made weirder because generally if Erie wants to say something, she’ll say it. “Funeral details.” She tosses me the phone.
    I feel a weird chill as I realize she’s right. It’s the address and the time of the funeral Saturday. But the number’s private. How am I supposed to text him back, let him know if I can go or not?
    Then another text:
    Please come.
    Five seconds later, another:
    I’ll pick you up.
    And I realize now I have no choice.
    I have to go. There’s no way to tell him not to come and get me.
    But there’s something else.
    I want him to come and get me.
    I want to see him again.
    And there’s another something else.
    How does he know where I live?

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................
FIVE.
    I ask him when I see him.
    I wait by the picture window in the living room and as soon as I see his car pull into my driveway, I’m out the door.
    His car is nice. It’s a dark blue, shiny, clean.
    He gets out to open the door for me, which I don’t expect. He’s there before I reach the passenger side, and he’s wearing a dark blue suit. I’m wearing a dress I’ve worn to each of my grandparents’ funerals. It’s black, goes to the knees. I feel weird wearing it. Like maybe it smells. Like somehow it’s absorbed the odor of all the funeral parlors it’s seen. The formaldehyde. The flowers. The smell nobody admits is rot.
    “You look nice,” he says when I reach him.
    I shrug and mumble thanks.
    I don’t like when people give me compliments. It makes me feel like I owe them something in return.
    Plus, it’s a funeral. Do I really want to look nice for a funeral? People shouldn’t look nice for funerals, should they? What does that say about them? Does it say that they don’t care about the person that died? That they have enough time to do their hair and their makeup and put appropriate shoes