Free Dark Blue: Color Me Lonely with Bonus Content by Melody Carlson Page B

how you look at it), we don’t have any good bridges in our town.
    So that’s when I decided to read a book that my grandmother had sent me last summer. “For your summer reading,” she’d written on a sweet little card with daisies on it. Like I actually read books in the summertime. At least not last summer, when I had a friend to hang with and places to go. (Well, when I wasn’t babysitting for the neighbor’s two grade-school-aged kids.)
    Anyway, I’m not even sure what made me pick up this paperback in the first place. Boredom I suppose. I could tell right off that it was a “religious” sort of book. And I know that my grandma is really into her church these days. More so than ever since my grandpa died last winter. But this particular book was about a teenage girl who became a Christian when she was sixteen then died in a car wreck exactly one year later (she was wiped out by a drunken driver). Okay, to start with, I was thinking,
Now this is acheerful little book. Not!
But I must admit that something about it was intriguing. And I found myself getting caught up in the story and this girl’s life and I actually cried when it ended.
    Plus it gave me a lot to chew on and think about. And I’ve been wanting to share some of these thoughts with my new art “friends.” Okay, I’m still not sure that I can call them friends. For one thing, we don’t spend time together outside of art. Also, they all seem to have their own circles of friends. Amy has her pot-smoking Goth group. And Felicia has a couple of academic chums that she’s hung with since middle school. Even Edgar has a life. He’s in chess club and goes to some kind of youth group. So calling myself their friend is still really stretching it. Just the same, I’ve stayed in the art room during lunch every day this week. I’ve been the brunt of Amy’s attacks, been defended by Edgar, and listened to Felicia’s soapbox lectures. I’ve watched as a couple of other kids have dropped in and out during the course of the week. But I can tell that the core art lunch bunch consists of Amy, Felicia, and Edgar. And on Friday it’s just the three of them and me again.
    I had already offered to spring for pizza today, and Edgar called it in and went out to meet the pizza van on the street. I had saved up a week’s worth of lunch money by packing my own lunches, and I thought it’d be good to spend it on this. No one argued with my offer either. Not even Edgar, although I’m sure he knows this means Amy has open season on him.
    I’m into my second slice when I decide to bring up the subject that’s bugging me. I sense that Felicia will have something definite to say about it. Maybe Edgar too. For that matter, I’m sure Amy will have an opinion.
    “I read this book,” I begin. “About a girl who’s about our age, but she gets killed by a drunken driver.”
    “Nice,” says Amy with sarcasm. “Guess we don’t need to read it now that we know how the story ends. Thanks.”
    “Actually the book cover makes that perfectly clear,” I continue. “The thing is, this girl supposedly has a personal relationship with God during this year. She writes about it in her journal, and her parents find it afterward, and that’s mainly what the book’s about.”
    “I think I read that,” says Felicia eagerly. “Is it called
Last Dance?
”
    “Yeah.”
    “I totally loved that book!”
    “Really? It left me feeling kind of confused.”
    “Confused?” says Amy. “Sounds more like it would leave you feeling depressed.”
    “Depends on how you look at it,” says Felicia.
    I frown. “Maybe it’s just me. But I found it pretty hard to believe. Do you think it’s really true?”
    “True?” echoes Felicia. “True as in did this really happen? Did that girl become a Christian, keep a journal, and then get killed?”
    I shrug. That’s not exactly what I meant.
    “Yeah, I think that’s true,” says Felicia. “Why would they make it up?”
    “Not