Read The Long and Faraway Gone for Free Online Page B

sexy, and then yawned, and then stretched, and then yanked down one of the stuffed Pink Panthers.
    â€œWhat the hell?” the goat roper who had won the first race complained. “That ain’t right!”
    The carny snapped around— ­snap! —­and gave the goat roper a stare so electric with menace that Genevieve expected the colored lightbulbs that trimmed the booth to buzz and dim.
    The goat roper blinked. And he wasn’t some small sissy guy either. He looked away, then slid from his stool and slunk off. Genevieve heard him mutter something under his breath, but only when he was at a safe distance.
    The carny turned back to Genevieve and smiled. It was official: Julianna was no longer the only girl at the balloon race about to pee her pants with excitement.
    â€œSo, hey,” the carny said. “Some of us are gonna party later. Just after dark, out back at the trailers. Why don’t you come by?”
    â€œWhatever,” Genevieve said. She grabbed Julianna’s wrist and pulled her away from the booth. Julianna hugged her Pink Panther like she’d just given birth to the baby Jesus. Genevieve waited till they were almost to the end of Carnival Row before she glanced back. And sure enough there he was, the sexy carny, watching just like she knew he’d be.
    G ENEVIEVE HAD STARTED smoking pot when she was fourteen. Everyone smoked pot. Who didn’t smoke pot at parties? Or on break from your shitty job at Baskin-­Robbins, the only place in town where you didn’t have to be sixteen to work. You could lie about your age to get a job at other places—­a lot of ­people did that—­but why bother? Those jobs were none the less shitty.
    Pot was fine, but pot was boring. Ludes made Genevieve feel gross and sluggish. Cocaine, on the other hand—­oh, my. Genevieve had been introduced at age sixteen, when she and her friend Lacey snuck into a college party. That first rush was like nothing Genevieve had ever experienced before.
    Why, hello there!
    Most normal humans, like her friend Lacey, could do drugs on the weekends or at parties and then go on with their normal human lives. Genevieve, apparently, was not a normal human.
    God. The stupid shit that Genevieve had done when she was on drugs. And she had done it without a second thought.
    But why blame the drugs for that? According to her mother, Genevieve had never given a second thought to anything. Her mother said Genevieve had never cared about anyone but herself.
    So please explain why Genevieve, if she was so selfish and self-­centered, had practically raised Julianna by herself those first few years after their dad died. Fixing her breakfast, fixing her dinner, giving her baths. Julianna permanently attached to her like she was a tumor or something, even after Julianna was way too big for Genevieve to carry around on her hip.
    While their mother worked all day and ran around with her girlfriends all night and only managed to drag herself home so she could yell at Genevieve about the laundry not being done.
    Typical Genevieve, their mother would say if she could hear her now. It’s always all about Genevieve, isn’t it?
    â€œGenni?”
    â€œWhat?”
    It was dusk. They were sitting on the curb in front of the rodeo arena, watching the colors of the midway catch fire. Genevieve felt gritty and grimy and tired. But with the sun down, and the light mellow, and a cool breeze blowing, and those amazing midway colors—­all the hard edges, both the world’s and Genevieve’s, seemed a tiny bit softer.
    â€œI’m scared about high school,” Julianna said.
    â€œYou don’t start high school till year after next, you dork.”
    â€œI know.”
    Genevieve knew. She listened to the screams drifting over from the midway, the bad hair metal, the muted clank and hiss of the rides.
    â€œLook,” she told Julianna. “High school is like anything. It sucks.