The Dead Enders by Erin Saldin

The Dead Enders by Erin Saldin

Author:Erin Saldin [Saldin, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781481490429
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published: 2018-05-01T04:00:00+00:00


ANA

I don’t want him to let go. I don’t want him to, but he does. I slide into the seat. “Nice car,” I say, trying to sound normal. “It looks like chinos and family suppers.” Then I glance at his pants. Chinos. “Sorry.”

Davis gets in and pats the dashboard. He clears his throat. “We call it ‘I’m Not Giving Up; I’m Just Giving In.’ ”

I want to laugh, but all the worry of the past two hours has left me hollow.

We start driving away from the hospital.

“Want me to swing by Grainey’s?” Davis asks. “We can throw your bike in the back.”

“No,” I say. “I’ve already texted my mom. She’ll pick it up after work tonight.”

He nods. “Okay.” I tell him how to take the back roads toward my apartment complex. “Good thinking,” Davis says. “Friday afternoon. We don’t want to get caught in Weekender traffic.”

“There’s not a lot of traffic out by my house,” I tell him. “There never is.”

I still feel numb, the image of Vera in her hospital bed always a half second away from crushing me, but being here in the car with Davis is helping. There’s a heat radiating off his body that’s more comforting than the glare of the sun outside. I’m not alone. I’m not alone yet.

Davis looks at me out of the corner of his eye. “I don’t remember when you moved here,” he says. “Isn’t that funny? It seems like we’ve known each other forever.” He coughs, embarrassed about something.

“I was ten,” I tell him.

“Where were you before that?”

I look out the window. “Where weren’t we?” So many years of trying first one town and then another, the cities getting smaller in direct proportion to my mom’s dreams. Someone told her about an opening at the Grand, and we packed up and moved the next week. “I can still remember what it was like to walk around Main Street for the first time,” I tell Davis now, “and how relieved I was to be somewhere with a beach. I’d never been to the ocean—still never have.”

“Really?” He tries to cover his surprise.

I nod. “Yeah. The lake was just as good, though. I remember I loved the way the water lapped at my feet after boats went by. Just like the ocean—or at least, that’s what I thought.” I don’t tell him about the other thing. How I felt like I could be anyone out there on the public beach. Just another girl building castles with her mom. Maybe they live in a house. Maybe they’re visiting from out of town. Even then, I knew enough to know that this was something rare: a place to go that was free but didn’t make us feel poor.

“Sounds nice,” he says.

“You know,” I say, “we talk about the Weekenders like there’s a hierarchy. Toney’s, Docksides—”

“There is,” he interrupts. We’ve pulled up to my apartment building, and he puts the car in park. Neither of us gets out.

“Maybe,” I say, “but you want to ignore the hierarchy when they’re gone.



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