Read The Night Gwen Stacy Died for Free Online

Sheila smiled up at her sister
     and for no reason at all remembered this time when they were kids Sheila had become
     lost in a Hy-Vee supermarket, and Andrea had called her name down each of the aisles.
     Sheila had heard her sister’s voice leading her and had followed it from the chaos
     of the cereal aisle all the way back to produce, where her family was waiting. And
     for a moment, she wanted to reach out and seize her sister’s hand and say,
let’s get out of here, Andy, you and me, we could just go
.
    “So are you?” Andrea said.
    Sheila’s smile faded. She swirled around the ice in her glass that signified the end
     of the drink. “Am I what?” she asked.
    “Sleeping with anyone!” Andrea said. “Hello? Are you in this conversation or not?”
    “No and not,” Sheila said. But she smiled.
    “But you’ll tell me when you are, right?” Andrea said.
    “I wouldn’t hold your breath or anything.”
    “You should do it in high school,” Andrea said wistfully. “That’s when it’s the best,
     sneaking around behind lockers, and those dark storage rooms near the gym.”
    “I’ll probably do it when I’m in France,” Sheila said. “By the river or something.”
    “Ugh, gross,” Andrea said. “That sounds like a great way to get a disease. The river
     is probably where women go to get molested.”
    “The Seine? The fucking Seine, Andrea, really?”
    Her sister rolled her eyes. She opened her mouth as if in rebuttal, but then shut
     it just as quickly.
    “What?” said Sheila.
    “Nothing,” said Andrea. “Forget it.”
    “Say it,” said Sheila.
    Andrea shrugged. “Just that the whole thing’s weird.”
    “Maybe to you.”
    “Not just to me. I think Mom and Dad sort of thought you would go to college next
     year.”
    “You didn’t go to college,” said Sheila.
    “It’s different,” said Andrea. “I have Donny. And we have a business plan.”
    “So if I was having sex with someone who I was starting a business with, I wouldn’t
     have to go to college either.”
    “Touché,” said Andrea rolling her eyes.
    “French!” Sheila shouted. “Ha-ha!” She waved her finger in her sister’s face, as if
     she’d caught Andrea in the act of something, as if this usage were evidence Sheila
     was winning the argument they were always perpetually having on some level. “Vive
     la France!” she growled in the direction the pool table. She laughed until she hiccupped,
     until her body shook, and when she looked up again, she saw that Andrea was regarding
     her with a look of slight concern from the other side of the table.
    Sheila felt uneasy. The fire that had felt warm under her tongue had moved into her
     stomach. She wanted to feel as she had before, as the drink was still going down.
     Patsy Cline had given way to Peggy Lee, who was angry in a different way, demanding
     to know whether or not
that
was all there
is
. Sheila looked at her sister, five years her senior, who obviously had figured out
     some way to live in the world, and wanted to ask of her something similar. But she
     held her tongue. “I’m going up for another one,” Sheila said. She was looking through
     the money in her purse to go up and ask for the drink herself. But just as she was
     getting ready to leave the booth, she froze.
    Peter Parker walked in and sat at the bar. She watched him take a roll of bills out
     of his pocket and lay a few of them down on the counter. He counted the money flippantly,
     as if it were irrelevant how many dollars were there, and how many needed to be laid
     down to pay for his drink. When he looked up and met Sheila’s gaze, she looked away.
    “Who is that guy?” Andrea asked.
    “Oh, just this guy.”
    “Well he’s looking at you like some kind of pervert.”
    “Let him,” said Sheila.
    She needed to stand up now, to signal to him somehow. But she felt scared of walking
     straight up to the bar. It didn’t seem right to run into him this way, with Andrea
     and Donny.