The front door slammed as I pulled Amma’s bedroom door shut.
“Hey everybody. I’m home,” my dad’s voice called from the hall. I was about to answer, when I heard the familiar sound of another door opening. “I’ll be in the study. I have lots of reading to do.” It was ironic. My dad spent all his time researching the Eighteenth Moon, and I knew more about it than I wanted to.
As I walked back through the kitchen, I saw the old Coke bottle sitting on the table, exactly where Amma left it. It was too late to catch anything in that bottle, but I picked it up anyway.
I wondered if there were bottle trees where I was going.
On my way to my room I passed the study, where my dad was working. He was sitting at my mom’s old desk, the light filling up the room, his work, and the caffeinated coffee he’d smuggled into the house. I opened my mouth to say something. I didn’t know what—just as he rummaged in the drawer for his earplugs, twisting them into his ears.
Good-bye, Dad.
I rested my forehead on the doorway in silence. I let things be what they were. He would know the rest, soon enough.
It was after midnight when Lena finally cried herself to sleep. I was sitting on my bed reading Of Mice and Men one last time. Over the last few months, my memories had faded so much that I couldn’t remember a lot of it, anyway. I still remembered one part, though. The end. It bothered me every time I read it—the way George shot Lennie while he was telling Lennie about the farm they were going to buy one day. The one Lennie would never see.
When we read the novel in English class, everyone agreed that George was making this big sacrifice by killing his best friend. It was ultimately a mercy kill, because George knew Lennie was going to be hanged for accidentally killing the girl at the ranch. But I never bought it. Shooting your best friend in the head, instead of making a run for it, doesn’t seem like a sacrifice to me. Lennie made the sacrifice, whether he knew it or not. Which was the worst part—I think Lennie would’ve knowingly sacrificed himself for George in a minute. He wanted George to get that farm, to be happy.
I knew my sacrifice wasn’t going to make anyone happy, but it was going to save their lives. That was enough. I also knew none of the people who loved me would let me make that kind of sacrifice for them, which is why I was pulling on my jeans at one in the morning.
I took one last look around my room—the shoe boxes stacked along the walls that held everything important to me, the chair in the corner where my mother sat when she visited me two months ago, the piles of my favorite books hidden under my bed, and the swivel chair that hadn’t swiveled the time Macon Ravenwood sat in it. I wanted to remember it all. As I swung my leg over the windowsill, I wondered if I would.
The Summerville water tower loomed above me in the moonlight. Most people probably wouldn’t have picked this place, but this is where it happened in the dreams, so I knew it was right. I was taking a lot of things on faith lately. Knowing you don’t have much time left changes things. You get kind of philosophical. And you figure things out—more like, they figure themselves out—and everything gets real clear.
Your first kiss isn’t as important as your last.
The math test really didn’t matter.
The pie really did.
The stuff you’re good at and the stuff you’re bad at are just different parts of the same thing.
Same goes for the people you love and the people you don’t—and the people who love you and the people who don’t.
The only thing that mattered was that you cared about a few people.
Life is really, really short.
I took Lena’s charm necklace out of my back pocket and looked at it one last time. Then I reached through the open window of the Volvo and dropped it on the seat. I didn’t want anything to happen to it when this was all over. I was glad she gave it to me. I felt like part of her was here with me.
But I was alone. I wanted it this way. No friends, no family. No talking, no Kelting. Not even Lena.
I wanted to let things feel the way they really were.
The way things felt was terrible. The way things were was worse.
I could feel it now. My fate was coming for me—my fate, and something else.
The sky ripped open a few feet from where I was standing. I expected Link to step out of the darkness with a pack of Twinkies or something, but it was John Breed.
“What’s going on? Are Macon and Liv okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Everyone’s fine, all things considered.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
He shrugged, flipping the top of his lighter open and closed. “I thought you might need a wingman.”
“Why? To push me over the edge?” I was only half kidding.