Ask for Andrea (Ask for Andrea, #1)

by Noelle W. Ihli

For a few seconds, I couldn’t understand what was happening. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even tell where I was. All I knew was that everything hurt.

I wasn’t wind: I was air. But air could go places. And that gave me an idea.

An hour ago, he had taken everything I had. I didn’t know how, but I planned to return the favor.

He was the kind of beautiful that drew you in before you even considered the fact that beautiful things can be poisonous.

I called up the faces of the people I loved and felt the sadness settle around me like a heavy blanket. I’d never considered the fact that mourning might go both ways. Instead of mourning one person, I was mourning everyone I had ever cared about. They were all gone now.

I learned that she’d tried pot when she was fifteen. That part of the reason she’d been so excited about me going to college was that she had dropped out her senior year. That when I was six days old, she’d shown up at a pediatrician’s appointment without a bra on, because she hadn’t gotten any sleep since I’d been born. That she secretly prayed at night, despite telling Lucrecia that she still didn’t believe in God. That she wanted to move away from Idaho. That she still thought about my dad a lot. That she wished she’d had more kids. I listened and watched and wished I could tell her that I was still here. That in some ways, despite the chasm that I’d fallen into, I felt closer to her now than I ever had.

On a date that isn’t going well? Ask for Andrea at the bar. We’ll make sure you get home safe.