Free The Voice on the Radio by Caroline B. Cooney

next time, he would actually sit in one of the cozy armchairs in the adult section and read the first paragraphs of some of those books, and even take one home.
    “We could stop off at the Johnsons’,” said Jodie eagerly, “and see Janie.”
    Any idea that they had a new, easy, upbeat life vanished.
    Their mother’s face sagged and she looked blindly at her shopping list, swallowing hard as she checked off an item they hadn’t yet bought.
    Brian was becoming the person he should have been, but his mother could never be the person she should have been.
    The damage had been too long, and too terrible.
    Oh, Hannah, he thought. What you did to us.

    Derek Himself loved to talk about fame. “Did you see me on
20/20
last night?” Derek liked to ask. “I’m America’s newest shock jock, syndicated in a hundred and seventy-two stations. They had to interview me, or their ratings would tumble.”
    Reeve, listening, thought: I’m the one here who might actually accomplish those things. And now I have to back off.
    He’d been so surprised by his visit home. Nothing had changed. His life was so different that he had somehow expected everybody else’s life to be different, too. The same pots were stacked on the same stove. The same pile of bills waited for attention on the same counter. He had forgotten high school, too, but there it sat: same halls, teachers, lights, sounds, smell.
    And Janie.
    He’d forgotten the silk of her hair.
    Forgotten what it was like to be the physical center of someone’s universe.
    Forgotten, here among other young men pushing and shoving for ratings, what it was like just to be loved.
    He’d felt so great, saving her from the yearbook assault.
    That evening Reeve and Janie sprawled on the sofa in his parents’ living room, Janie half in his lap, leaning back against his chest, holding his arms locked around her, while he rested his chin on her head. If he relaxed his hug, she’d pull his arms tight again, for that combination of love and safety that she required of him.
    She filled him in on the reporter who had tried to barge into her house on Lipstick Day. It was good that she could not see Reeve’s face. He was doing exactly what Tyler and the reporter had tried to do, except they had failed, and Reeve hadn’t.
    Reeve’s answers, therefore, required detour after detour. It was like the streets of Boston: one pit after another. Every sentence led to WSCK, and he couldn’t even mention it, let alone brag. How he wanted to tell her: Janie, I’m the
best
, I’m a fad, people tune in just for
me
.
    He wanted Janie to light up, the way she did, all the way to her fingertips, laughing her wonderful laugh, and kissing him before she got her laugh done.
    On the train returning to Boston, it was an easy decision: back off, skip radio.
    But here in the studio…
    Derek had put on the Fog, had a tape by Slow Burn ready to play back to back. Plenty of time for Vinnie, Cal, Derek and Reeve to talk. Talking was what they liked best. There were no strong, silent types in radio.
    Back off didn’t mean quit. Back off meant still here, but not as deejay. Or as deejay, but not doing janies.
    If I’m here, listening to Derek Himself, can I stand it? I’d rip the mike out of his hands and do a janie anyway. I’m not gonna back off. So I have to quit. Cold. The way people who have quit smoking have to throw away their cigarettes.
    Not come down here again.
    Not hang out with these guys.
    Find a new set of friends.
    “Vinnie,” he said, and he found it surprisingly hard to get enough air beneath his sentence, as if this were his first time on the radio all over again, “I’m going to quit.”
    “No, you’re not. You love this.”
    “I do love it. But Janie is a real person. This would upset her. So I’m quitting.”
    Vinnie was amused. “You won’t quit. You love the sound of your voice. You love the numbers, how you’re up every week. You’re an addict.”
    I am not. I am in control and