If I Fix You. Abigail Johnson

Чтение книги онлайн.

       CHAPTER 4

      My dark red Schwinn was parked in the garage next to Dad’s current project. I eyed one with disdain and the other with enough desire to make my mouth water. The truck was a big, beautiful beast. Large enough that I had to hop up when I got into it. Driving it was like trying not to get bucked off a wild animal. No power steering and the brakes were a tad temperamental. Little by little it was becoming street safe, but not, according to Dad, daughter safe yet.

      Details.

      The bike was the same one I’d had since junior high and I took it as a deep, personal insult that I still had to ride it most mornings even though I had a driver’s license and a revolving supply of vehicles in varying stages of drivability at my disposal.

      Dad had yet to agree. I’d keep working on him.

      The wheels clicked softly as I rolled my bike out of the garage. At least the temperature hadn’t reached lethal limits yet. The wind that whipped my ponytail around didn’t feel like a hair dryer in my face. That fun would come on the bike ride home.

      I turned into my high school parking lot ten minutes later and saw a lone figure jogging around the track by the canals. Her hair was pulled back in a French braid with a few wispy curls escaping around her face. She looked like she’d stepped out of a toothpaste commercial with her big blue eyes, white-blond hair and matching smile.

      She’d been my best friend since the day her family moved in down the street from my old house. She’d knocked on my door with her mom in tow and introduced herself to my mother. “Hi, I’m Claire Vanderhoff. Do you have any kids I can play with?”

      She’d been six at the time and was still every bit as forthright at sixteen.

      She waved and hurried to meet me.

      “Hey! Look at you almost being on time.” Claire bounced in front of me, her body in perpetual movement. “Be careful, waking up this early is addictive. I alphabetized my entire pantry already this morning, and tried out a new juicing recipe. Here.”

      My hands were balancing my bike as I walked it to the rack, so I had no choice but to tip my head back when she lifted the thermos to my lips. The blackish-green liquid that hit my tongue tasted like super bitter—and chunky—grass. I mostly concealed a gag.

      Claire rolled her eyes and took her thermos back. “That’s your body crying out for more than milk shakes.”

      “Do I look like I pedaled through a drive-through on my way here?”

      “No, but that’s probably your plan for the ride home.”

      She had me there. “What did I just drink anyway?” I nodded toward her metal thermos.

      “Wheatgrass, kale and gingerroot.”

      I grimaced. “Seriously, Claire?”

      “What? It’s supposed to help detox and give you all this energy.” Claire took a whiff. “I found the recipe on this diabetes website that’s pretty good.”

      I noticed she was quick to put the lid back. “You need to start your own site. You could make something a million times better and it wouldn’t have to taste like grass and dog piss.”

      Claire widened her eyes, uncomfortable with anything that even hinted at crude language. She did brighten at my compliment though, which was completely true. In the two years since her type 2 diabetes diagnosis, Claire had transformed from an overweight spectator to a rather impressive athlete with an ever-expanding nutritional knowledge base.

      “I’ve been thinking about starting something...maybe.” She smiled at me. “I could definitely make a better juice.”

      “And I will definitely watch you drink it.”

      “So,” Claire said after I chained my bike, suddenly very interested in a rock by her foot. She nodded toward the end of the parking lot where a forest green Jetta was idling, its driver fast asleep behind the wheel.

      Sean.

      Unlike Claire and me, this was the end of his day, not the beginning. He came to the track straight СКАЧАТЬ