Before We Go Extinct by Karen Rivers

Author:Karen Rivers
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374302450
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

23

When I wake up, my mouth is thick and dry and sticky. It’s fully dark but the voices are still chattering on the deck. The air is dense with the smell of burned burgers and fire-pit smoke. The boy is curled up on the couch, asleep with the dogs, breathing in god-knows-what-kind-of terrible old couch mold. Dad and Darcy are sitting on a bench a short way down the point, heads bent together. From here, they could be anyone. They could be teenagers. They could be me and Daff but the hair is wrong, as is the way they are sitting. Everything is wrong. I shudder. There is a huge moon hanging over the strait that looks like a prop from a stupid Broadway musical. I half expect them to burst into a song-and-dance number, tap dancing along the sandstone bluff.

The girl with the white hair is playing solitaire on the driftwood table. Kelby.

“Hey,” she says. “Again. Hey again. You. Look, I’m sorry. This is going to be weird if you hate me. Please don’t hate me.”

I shrug. I do hate her, but there’s no use in her knowing that, and besides, I hate everyone. When it’s spread so thin like that, the hate, is it really anything at all? We’re kind of stuck with each other.

“You going to talk or are you back to being mute?” she says. “It’s super hard work doing the talking for two. Usually I don’t have to. My brother and my mum fill up the silences, you know? I’m the quiet one! But I guess that won’t work out with you.” She pauses, runs her finger around the edge of a card, then flips it over. “Okay, well. Um. Let’s talk about sports. You like the Yankees? Is that a New York thing? The Yankees? Come on, give me a break, okay? I won’t tell if you talk. Maybe you could whisper.” She whispers the last part, which makes me shiver. I’ve read on the Internet about people dialing up YouTube videos, listening to people whispering, and right up till this second, I thought that was totally crazy. Now I’m not so sure. I raise my eyebrow at her, and she whispers, “You do know how to whisper, right?” Goose bumps. I rub my arms. Screw this. I raise my hand in the Official Sharkboy Goodbye and head down the steps to the beach, tripping a couple of times because this is a whole new kind of darkness to me. Nothing is even. Everything is off balance.

Kelby, Kelby, Kelby, I think out loud in my head, so maybe she can hear me. Maybe she’ll follow me. Maybe I want her to.

Maybe I don’t.

The tide is high, so I find a rock and sit on it, take off my shoes, and let my feet rest in the water, which is as cold as ice.

She really is stupidly beautiful, which is pretty unfair. I mean, any guy would be interested. She doesn’t look anything like Daff,

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