Be Not Far from Me by Mindy McGinnis

Author:Mindy McGinnis [McGinnis, Mindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2020-03-02T18:30:00+00:00

Day Six

The dead bit of my foot is rotting by the door. It’s getting warmer, and the camper works like an oven, my foot a bad piece of meat, cooking slow in the heat.

I wake to the smell, sunlight slanted at an angle that tells me it’s late afternoon, and my tongue so dry it’s swollen. The flask sits on the floor where I left it, miraculously intact after my kicking fit. I sit up slowly, deciding if I’m drunk, high, or coming down from both. It must be the last because even though I’m woozy my foot hurts like shit set on fire. I unwrap the bandage to have a look.

I’m swelled still, but the red lines of infection might be retreating. I tilt my foot in the sunlight, trying to gauge if that’s true or if I’ve suddenly decided to be an optimist. But I think I’m right, and somehow the swelling looks less angry, which I know is hardly a medical term but is somehow completely accurate.

I slide to the edge of the mattress, good foot first, and put my heel down in my own blood, now tacky and drying. The floor is covered, and it sticks to me like syrup as I get down on my butt, scooting over to the flask and the one granola bar I’ve got left. I crawl past the piece of flint, still stuck into the linoleum like a tombstone for my foot.

My foot thumps like my heart decided to vacate my chest and move down there, so I lean against the wall, propping it onto the counter and wiping my hands as clean as possible on my jeans. I swig back what’s left of the water even though it’s flat and stale, and try to figure out how long I can afford to stay here.

I don’t know whose setup this is, but I do know that nobody stays away from this many pills for long. Judging by how my uncle Chuck was dealt with for making junk meth on the side, I don’t think the owner of this camper will take kindly to me knowing where their stash is kept, or kicking in their door, for that matter.

I’m a girl alone where she doesn’t belong, and one who will be presumed dead in a week or so. If someone were to finish off that process a little more quickly than nature intends and dump my body elsewhere, nobody would think anything of it—and that’s if I ever got found in the first place.

The pill bottles are still strewn across the floor and I reach for one, feeling a little tug of resistance as my dried blood tries to keep it. The label’s been torn off to hide who it was stolen from, but the date it was filled is still up in the corner. I count backward and figure out that it was filled maybe ten days ago, which means somewhere between then and now it got up to a

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