The Program

CHAPTER SEVEN




THE AMBULANCE IS GONE BY THE TIME WE GET TO Miller’s house. There’s no flurry of activity or sirens, so we know it’s too late. We sit for a long time, staring at his white house with its black shutters. James doesn’t hold my hand, and I don’t reach for his. We’re just quiet.

The sun sets behind the house and the living room light switches on. We can see Miller’s mother in the picture window, curled up on the couch. There’s another woman with her, talking and wandering around. James and I have been in houses after a death before, and it’s not a good place to be—not when we’re already so compromised.

“Miller was going to be eighteen in three months,” James says, his voice strangled, but he doesn’t bother to clear his throat. “He wouldn’t have been scared of The Program anymore. He wouldn’t have done this.”

It’s a question we often ask ourselves: Would we commit suicide without The Program, or does it help drive us there?

“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” I say, chills running over me as I continue to stare at Miller’s house. My Miller—my friend. The first day I met him he was playing with the Bunsen burner and my homework caught on fire. Instead of yelling and dropping it, he grabbed my Diet Coke and doused it. Then he looked over and asked if he could buy me another one.

He came camping with us, he cut school with us, he loved us. He was such a good guy and he was such a good friend, and I just can’t . . . I just can’t . . .

“Sloane,” James says, pulling my arm. But I’m rocking, banging my forehead against the window, trying to make the memories, the regret, the pain go away. I want to stop moaning because I don’t even know what I’m saying. But I can’t control myself. I can’t control anything.

And just then James slaps me, hard. I gasp in a breath, snapped out of my hysteria as my cheek stings. Normally James would have talked me down, held me to him. But instead his eyes are swollen and red from crying. His skin is blotchy and wet. I’ve never seen him look like this, and I touch my face, still stunned.

James hitches in labored breaths, his body nearly convulsing with them. I’ve stopped crying, but my head throbs from where I was banging it on the glass. James still says nothing and then looks past me to Miller’s house, just as the porch light clicks off. He whimpers, and I reach for him but he backs against the car door.

Slowly, he pulls the driver’s side handle and opens it, falling out onto the street. “What are you doing?” I manage to say. But he doesn’t look at me as he scrambles up, staring at the house with horror on his face. And then James turns and starts running, his sandals clapping on the pavement. I push open my door and scream after him. “James!” I yell, but he’s around the corner and out of my sight.

I can’t move at first. I’m hyperaware of everything around me, the orange haze low in the sky from the sunset. The trees swaying in the wind. I think about going up to Miller’s house and asking if I can lie in his bed for a while, feel close to him one last time. But that’s the kind of thing that gets you flagged.

Miller. I’ll never go with him to the river again. We’ll never have lunch again. He’ll never turn eighteen. Oh, God. Miller.

I blink, but no tears fall because my eyes are dried out and scratchy. I touch my cheek again where it still stings. It occurs to me that James didn’t say anything—he didn’t tell me I was being hysterical. He didn’t hold me and tell me to cry it out. He didn’t tell me it would be okay.

He didn’t say anything.

Suddenly my heart explodes with worry. I clamor all the way out of the passenger seat and race around the car, getting in the other side and slamming it into drive. I need to find James. I grab my phone from the center console and call him, my fingers trembling over the numbers.

There’s no answer until his voice mail picks up. “It’s James. Talk to me, baby.” I hang up and dial again, turning down the same street where I saw him running. It’s empty, and then the streetlights turn on. Where is he? He needs to be okay. He needs to tell me I’m okay.

I press down on the accelerator, looking frantically around the streets. James’s house is only a few blocks away, so he might be there. I hope he’s there. I’m going to find him and I’m going to hold him.

The car tires bump the curb hard as I pull up to his house. I run, not even shutting the door, and race to his front porch. I rush inside and yell for him, but no one answers. His dad isn’t home and I wonder what day it is, if he’s on a date tonight.

“James?” I’m screaming. “James?”

Silence. I trip as I run up the stairs, banging my shin hard on the wood. I curse under my breath but scramble ahead. I have to find him.

I burst into his room, and the minute I do, I freeze.

My James is sitting on the floor near the window, shirtless, in jeans. He pauses and looks up at me, his eyes red and swollen, his mouth slack. I barely recognize him. I hitch in a breath as he lowers the pocketknife, blood running down his arm, pooling in his lap.

“I needed to add his name,” he says, his voice thick. “I couldn’t wait for ink.”

I drop to my knees and begin crawling toward him, shocked, horrified, desperate. Miller’s name is carved jaggedly into his flesh. Blood is everywhere.

James lets the knife fall to the carpet.

He blinks likes he’s just noticing me. “Sloane,” he says softly. “What are you doing here, baby?”

I reach for him and bring his head against my chest. His blood is warm as it runs over my hand. James lies there listlessly as if he’s empty. As if he’s dead, too. And I won’t cry anymore today.

Because I know that James is now infected.

“It’s going to be okay,” I say, brushing back his sweaty blond hair. No emotion in my voice. Just the impossibility of it. “Everything is going to be okay, James.”

• • •

Luckily the cuts aren’t too deep, and I help James clean and cover them with a bandage and a long-sleeved shirt. I go through his dad’s medications until I think I find something that will calm him down. I clean his room, trying to scrub the blood out of his carpet but then opting to cover it with a chair when I can’t. I take the knife and throw it in the trash, considering hiding all the knives in the house, but I don’t want his dad to be suspicious.

James stares up at the ceiling, shaking even under the covers. I get into bed next to him, glancing at the clock and knowing his dad will be home soon. I wrap myself around James and hold on tight. I wait until the pills take effect, and when he’s asleep, I slip out. I hope that his father hasn’t heard about Miller yet. I hope that he’ll get home from his date and go to sleep, and then leave before James wakes up in the morning.

Then I’ll come over and get James ready for school. He’ll need time, need me to keep him normal, but then he’ll be fine. James will be eighteen in five months, and then after that they can’t take him away.

I’ll keep him safe, just like he kept me safe after Brady died. Because that day at the river when my brother killed himself, I almost went with him.