The Collide by Kimberly McCreight

Author:Kimberly McCreight
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-05-31T16:00:00+00:00

JASPER

IT WAS ALREADY THREE P.M. WHEN JASPER DROPPED OFF LETHE’S BIKE AT THE repair shop. They told him it wouldn’t be ready until four p.m., leaving him with a dangerously long hour to kill. Especially dangerous because the only repair shop he knew of was right near Wylie’s house. And so there he is, driving closer now, only a few blocks away.

Jasper just wants to look one last time at Wylie’s house before he all-the-way closes the door to her, to them. Closure, that’s it, that’s what he tells himself as he finally turns his Jeep down her block. He doesn’t even care if he spots Wylie, actually. This is just about marking a place—her house—to say his final good-bye.

Too bad it’s such a pathetic lie that Jasper can’t even bring himself to believe it as he spots her house up ahead.

It’s also not lost on Jasper that he has already begun fucking everything up like his mom was afraid he would, starting with missing the team meeting the night before.

“Dude, where the hell were you?” Chance had asked when he finally got home from his run at eleven thirty p.m. last night. “Coach was seriously pissed.”

“Shit,” Jasper had said, closing his eyes and hanging his head as he remembered the team meeting. After all that, coming back specifically to make it, he got Wylie’s note and forgot all about it. “What did he say?”

“‘Where the hell is Jasper?’ That’s what he said. I lied and told him your mom was sick,” Chance said, pleased with himself. “He seemed to get over it after that, but you might want to have some proof, or whatever, that she was sick. Also, I wouldn’t do it again.”

“Thanks, man, seriously,” Jasper had said.

And he is still grateful. Coach mentioned a doctor’s note at practice that morning, and that was after making him stay for an extra hour of drills and then to clean up the locker room. Hopefully, he can talk his mom into getting a note for herself. She does work in a hospital. Of course that means he’ll have to come up with a good reason he missed that meeting, one that doesn’t involve Wylie.

Except sitting there now, parked in his Jeep a block away from Wylie’s house, those reasons feel in kind of short supply. Jasper doesn’t see any signs of life up at Wylie’s house anyway. Like it’s past midnight, instead of past three in the afternoon.

Okay, so that’s it. No one there, nothing else to say.

Jasper is about to roll past the house when he catches sight of the front door. It’s hanging wide open just like it was the last time, when Wylie was in the hospital and someone trashed the place. That he’s at least got to check out.

He parks across the street and up a bit, out of sight between two other cars. Jasper watches the house in his rearview, for one minute, then two. Nothing. Just the door still hanging open weirdly. He’s just

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