How She Died, How I Lived by Mary Crockett

Author:Mary Crockett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2018-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

Distance

Charlie takes the back roads into Roanoke, and then even deeper back roads out of it. Before I know it, we’re heading up a mountain, long and winding, and Charlie passes the time by singing off-key.

“Whoa-ooh-ooh-ooh, the sun and your armpits…”

Make that: singing wrong lyrics off-key.

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I ask.

“It’s a surprise,” he says.

I know, I know I’m totally safe and there’s nothing to worry about, and this is fun, right? Surprises are supposed to be fun. And flowers are supposed to be beautiful and teenage girls are supposed to be alive. But with every mile, I feel a slight tick of unease. And of course Charlie is not Kyle, he’s not going to kill me—but there it is, regardless, that tick. Because once you know someone wanted to rape you and bash your head in, you can never not know it.

The woods on either side of the road blur red and orange in my periphery as we twist our way up the mountain.

“Hey, you all right?” Charlie asks.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s just, I’m… I’m not a big fan of surprises, I guess.”

“Okay,” Charlie says, all business and transparency. “We’re going to the Star.”

I give him a blank look.

“You know, Mill Mountain Star,” he says.

“Oh,” I say. “Of course! The Star.” Roanoke has this huge, tacky, lit-up star on the top of a mountain, which is kind of strange but kind of awesome, too. “Cool. I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”

“I made a picnic,” he says. “There’s a basket in the trunk. I figured we’d either set it up there or on the roof of that closed-down grocery store west of town. That’s what’s on the other slip of paper.”

“You have a very interesting definition of ‘date,’” I say, laughing. “I like it.”

“You want to know what I packed?”

“Packed?” I ask, confused.

“For the picnic. Do you want to know what’s in the basket?”

“Nah.” I tease, “You can surprise me.”

“So that surprise is okay?”

“You know,” I say, “I’ve always found consistency to be highly overrated.”

“Absolutely,” he agrees.

When we get to the overlook, it’s starting to become the time of day that isn’t quite day. Dusk. I smile, thinking of Charlie’s lips.

A low, shadowy, luminous sky hangs over our heads. The electric star on the mountain is not yet lit, but streetlights have started twinkling on below. In the distance, the city spreads before us, a tiny toy village.

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

“Do you ever think, when you’re down there, doing just regular stuff, someone might be up somewhere, looking down. And you’re just a speck to them. Just part of the landscape?”

I consider it. “Not really. Do you?”

“Sometimes,” he says. “It’s strange, how distance changes things. What can seem so huge, so important when you’re right in front of it—the farther you get, it’s like neither of you exist.”

We watch as day morphs into night. When I squint, the highway below us becomes a silver stream of light.

“Come here,” Charlie says. He leads me down a path in front of the Star, which is now lit in white.

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