My Heart and Other Black Holes by Warga Jasmine

Author:Warga, Jasmine [Warga, Jasmine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-02-10T08:00:00+00:00

TUESDAY, MARCH 26

12 days left

I get off work early and drive as fast as I can. My plan is to beat everyone home before dinner so I will have a few moments alone to poke around in the study. If my mom’s saved anything about my dad, I’ll find it in there.

I open the front door and stand in the hallway for a moment, holding my breath, hoping I’m the only one here.

“Hello?” I hear Mike call out.

“Mike, it’s just me,” I say softly, not wanting to make my presence known if someone else is home with him.

“What are we having for dinner?” His loud voice practically shakes the whole house. Mike inherited Steve’s vocal cords. If I didn’t love him so much, I might be irritated.

“I don’t know, Mikey. Mom will be home soon. You can ask her, okay?”

“Okay,” he answers. “Do you wanna come up and play FIFA with me?”

My lips twitch and I fight the urge to smile. “Maybe later. I have lots of homework.”

“Okay.” I can hear the disappointment in his voice.

I do my best to shrug it off and focus on the task at hand: snooping through Mom’s stuff. I walk down the narrow hallway and turn the corner into the study. It’s cramped and cluttered, hardly bigger than a closet. I hop over a few boxes so I can get behind the flimsy plastic desk.

I crane my neck to examine the boxes on the upper shelves of the bookcase. If I know my mother at all, which admittedly is questionable, she’d store our family’s dirty laundry in the most inaccessible place.

Standing on the computer chair, I reach for one of the cardboard boxes filled with manila folders. The chair swivels under my feet. As I stretch my fingers out, grasping for the box, I lose my balance and manage to knock two of the boxes and some books to the floor.

I fall off the chair with a thud and press my palms into the worn carpet to break my fall. My wrists burn and I see papers scattered all over the carpet. Fuck.

“Aysel?”

I look up and see Mike standing in front of me. Double fuck.

He’s clutching his video game controller to his chest and his mouth gapes open. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry about the noise.” I wave my hands in the direction of the scattered papers. “I lost my balance.”

He narrows his eyes. “What are you looking for?”

I crawl on my knees and start picking up the papers and shoving them randomly back into the boxes. So much for Mom’s organized study. One of the papers catches my eye. It’s an old report card of mine from fourth grade. I pick it up and run my fingers over the thin paper. I’m surprised she saved it.

“Aysel,” Mike says, his voice escalating in volume. “Why are you going through Mom’s things?”

I hold up my old report card. “Oh, sorry. I, uh, was looking for some old stuff of mine from school. You know, for college applications.

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