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The kind that could get me killed

I couldn’t allow nore theave up trying to concentrate on my schoolwork and busied myself with other tasks instead I went to the restaurant after school, even though it wasn’t my day to work I stocked the kitchen, and did dishes, and cleaned tables and counter-tops I inventoried supplies that had already been inventoried, and I helpedleft to occupy my restless hands

Even thenon the letter he’d written

Finally I decided I had only one choice

I grabbed a candle and h the kitchen, out the back door, and into the alley behind the restaurant

I found a spot in a darkened corner, away from the view of passersby on the street beyond, and I crouched down, cupping my hand around the candle’s wick as I lit it I reached into ht about reading it again--just this one last tiain; those words would haunt me forever, even in the absence of the paper they ritten on

I held the corner of the sheet above the candle, hesitating only slightly before letting the fire claim it I watched as the flaround before they could reach all the way to e, and then black, and then pallid shades of gray, caught in the slow currents of air that carried it away

I felt better once the paper had disintegrated, once it could no longer te alley, squatting over a candle as I stared at its tiny fla free at last

Brooklynn was a s I didn’t want to do; she always had been When I was barely older than Angelina, Brook had talkedto be a boy She thought it would be funny, a joke to play, tricking the other kids at school into thinking there was a new boy in our class

Unfortunately, et the joke

And, even worse, I really did look like a boy with my newly shorn hair That was the year the kids stopped calling ht Anicknam e was fine It suited rew back That was also the year I learned that I couldn’t always trust Brooklynn to put my interests ahead of her own

It wasn’t because she was a bad friendshe wasn’t It wasn’t even because she was vindictive or spitefulshe was neither She was justreckless