“Thanks for the doughnuts.”
The end of the conversation came the way it often did, with Metal Pete saying, “Well, I guess I’d better get back to the phones. Catch ya next time, Sadie May.”
CHAPTER NINE
Some Emails to Max in El Salvador From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: August 6
Subject: RE: the video
Max,
I like the video of the convent. Being able to see where you are helps. I imagined something much worse than cinder-block walls, your own room, and McDonald’s ten miles away. The shower is pretty old school, but at least you have running water. Can you drink the water there? Have you been sick at all? I forgot to ask in my last email.
You have to climb that volcano mountain. You’re not lacking in views. It’s beautiful there.
Sadie
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: August 8
Subject: Nightmares
Max,
I can’t believe they told you just to go on and drink the water and get sick. Ugh. That sounds awful.
I’m glad you brought up the nightmares. No, I doubt they have to do with you being sick. I have them too. I’ve been having them so frequently that my parents forced me to see a therapist—Dr. Fletcher Glasson—last week. Believe it or not, it wasn’t terrible. We mostly did paperwork and, as a first assignment, he suggested I “free-journal” about the wreck.
Do you think it is safe to tell him how I feel? I don’t want to write everything down if he’s going to tell my parents. These are my feelings and if my parents knew all of them, they’d just worry more than they already do. Fletcher (which is what he asked me to call him) said he wouldn’t unless he had to. I want to believe him.
Sadie
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: August 15
Subject: what I remember about June 29th
Max,
Good idea. But, if I’m going to free-journal with you, then you have to stop apologizing for letting me take shotgun. You didn’t know we’d crash. Deal? (The problem with writing Deal is that you’re in a whole other country.) Here goes. I remember a lot about that day, but I’ll start with when we got to the cars.
Gina and I hosed off the coolers and stowed them in her Jeep. You and Trent and Gray strapped the YOLO boards to the top of the Yaris. Trent mentioned kiteboarding and Gina said we didn’t have to go ninety-to-nothing every day. Trent and Gina walked back up to the shelter to “discuss” something.
When Trent came back down the walk, he told you and me to hop in the Yaris, that we were going home. Gina had tears in her eyes, and Trent didn’t crack a single smile. I hugged her bye and told her to call me after she’d taken Gray home.
Gray leaned into the car for a kiss and whispered, “If they break up—”
“They won’t,” I told him.
That was a lie. As much as I wanted us all to be fine, and be in each other’s weddings and other epic crap like that, the water was draining out of the sink for them. Trent had been . . . restless. He’d told me he’d planned a breakup. Did he ever talk to you about this?
I tried to stay out of it. They were both my friends, and I didn’t know what the group would look like if they broke up. I didn’t want to take sides, and I was worried they would want me to.
That was the wrong thing to worry about.