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I press back a grin. We’ve been dating for a couple of years now, and she’s the only girl I’ve ever been with and can ever see myself being with. I know it sounds superlame and cheesy because we’re only eighteen, but I’m seriously going to end up marrying her.
Still pouting, she slides her hand up my thigh until she reaches my cock, then she gives it a good rub. “Does that feel good? Because I’ll keep doing it if you just let me smoke. ”
I try not to laugh at her, because she’s wasted and it’ll probably piss her off, but it’s funny how annoyed she’s getting by my soberness. “And you’re feisty and pouty when you’re drunk. ” I squirm as she hits the right spot and fight not to shut my eyelids. “But I’m still not going to let you smoke in the car. ”
She rolls her eyes, draws her hand away from me, and glances in the backseat, where my cousin Ryder is making out with some guy she met at the party. Their hands are all over each other. I’m not a fan of hanging out with her, but she comes out to Seattle sometimes and stays with my grandma. Lexi and Ryder became best friends during one of her visits when they were about twelve, and they’ve been inseparable ever since, which is pretty much how I met Lexi.
When Lexi looks away, her nose is scrunched. “So gross. ”
I decelerate the car for a sharp corner in the road. “Oh, don’t pretend like you don’t wish it was you and me back there. ” I wink at her and she rolls her eyes. “You know you do. ”
She sighs and lets her arms fall to her lap. “Yeah, right. If we were back there and I was trying to stick my tongue down your throat, you’d totally be like”—she makes air quotes—“ ‘Lexi, please, there are people in the front seat who can see us. ’ ”
“You’re making me sound like an old man. ” I flash a playful grin at her as I downshift the car and the engine roars. The road is getting windier, and I have to slow down.
“You kind of are. ”
“Bullshit. I’m fucking fun as hell. ”
“No, you’re nice as hell, Quinton Carter. You’re seriously like the nicest guy I know, but the most fun? I’m not sure…” A conniving look crosses her face as she taps her finger against her lip. “How about we find out?” Without taking her eyes off me, she rolls the window down the rest of the way. The wind howls inside and blows her hair into her face.
“What the hell?” Ryder says from the backseat, jerking her lips away from the guy’s, and plucks strands of her hair out of her mouth. “Lexi, roll up the damn window. I’m eating my own hair here. ”
“So Mr. Fucking Fun as Hell,” Lexi says, with her eyes on me as she arches her back and moves her head toward the window. “Let’s find out just how fun you are. ”
I don’t like where she’s going with this. She’s too drunk, and even sober she’s always been a daredevil, impulsive and a little bit reckless. “Lexi, what are you doing? Get in here. I don’t want you to get hurt. ”
A lazy smile spreads across her lips as she sticks her head farther out the window. The pale glow of the moon hits her chest and makes her skin look ghostly against the darkness. “I want to see just how fun you are, Quinton. ” She extends her arms above her head as she slides up onto the windowsill. “I want to see how much you love me. ”
“Quinton, make her stop,” Ryder says, scooting forward in the seat. “She’s going to hurt herself. ”
“Lexi, stop it,” I warn, gripping onto the steering wheel with one hand and reaching for her with my other. “I love you and that’s why I need you to get down. Right now. ”
She shakes her head. I can’t see her face or if she’s not holding onto anything. I have no idea what the hell she’s doing or thinking, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t, either, and it’s fucking terrifying.
“If you’re so fun, then just let me be free,” she calls out. Her dress is blowing up over her legs and her feet are tucked down between the seat and the door.
Ryder lifts her leg to climb over into the front seat, but smacks her head on the roof and falls back. Shaking my head, I gently tap on the brakes as I lean over in the seat to grab Lexi. My fingers snag the bottom of Lexi’s dress and that’s when I hear the scream. Seconds later, the car is spinning out of control, and I don’t know what’s up or what’s down. Shards of glass fly everywhere and cut at my arms and face as I try to hold onto Lexi’s dress. But I feel the fabric leave my fingers as I’m jarred to the side. Everyone is screaming and crying as metal crunches and bends. I see bright lights, feel the warmth of blood as something slashes through my chest.
“Quinton…,” I hear someone whisper, but I can’t see who it is. I try to open my eyes, but it feels like they’re already open, yet all I see is darkness.
But maybe that’s better than seeing what’s actually there…
Chapter 1
Fifteen months later…
May 19, Day 1 of Summer Break
Nova
I have the web camera set up perfectly angled straight at my face. The green light on the screen is flickering insanely, like it can’t wait for me to start recording. But I’m not sure what I’ll say or what the point of all this is, other than my film professor suggested it.
He’d actually suggested to the entire class—and probably all of his classes—telling us that if we really wanted to get into filming, we should practice over the summer, even if we weren’t enrolled in any summer classes. He said, “A true videographer loves looking at the world through an alternative eye, and he loves to record how he sees things in a different light. ” He was quoting straight out of a textbook, like most of my professors do, but for some reason something about what he said struck a nerve.
Maybe it was because of the video Landon made right before the last seconds of his life. I’ve never actually watched his video, though. I never really wanted to and I can’t, anyway. I’m too afraid of what I’ll see or what I won’t see. Or maybe it’s because seeing him like that means finally accepting that he’s gone. Forever.
I originally signed up for the film class because I waited too long to enroll for classes and I needed one more elective. I’m a general major and don’t really have a determined interest path, and the only classes that weren’t full were Intro to Video Design or Intro to Theater. At least with the video class I’d be behind a lens instead of standing up in front of everyone where they could strip me down and evaluate me. With video, I get to do the evaluating. Turns out, though, that I liked the class, and I found out that there’s something fascinating about seeing the world through a lens, like I could be looking at it from anyone’s point of view and maybe see things at a different angle, like Landon did during his last few moments alive. So I decided that I would try to make some videos this summer, to get some insight on myself, Landon, and maybe life.
I turn on “Jesus Christ” by Brand New and let it play in the background. I shove the stack of psychology books off the computer chair and onto the floor, clearing off a place for me to sit. I’ve been collecting the books for the last year, trying to learn about the human psyche—Landon’s psyche—but books hold just words on pages, not thoughts in his head.
I sit down on the swivel chair and clear my throat. I have no makeup on. The sun is descending behind the mountains, but I refuse to turn the bedroom light on. Without the light the screen is dark, and I look like a shadow on a backdrop. But it’s perfect. Just how I want it. I tap the cursor and the green light shifts to red. I open my mouth, ready to speak, but then I freeze up. I’ve never been one for being on camera or in pictures. I’d liked being behind the scenes, and now I’m purposely throwing myself into the spotlight.
“People say that time heals all wounds, and maybe they’re right. ” I keep my eyes on the computer screen, watching my lips move. “But what if the wounds don’t heal correctly, like when cuts leave behind nasty scars, or when broken bones mend together, but aren’t as smooth anymore?” I glance at my arm, my brows furrowing as I touch the scar along the uneven section of skin wi
th my fingertip. “Does it mean they’re really healed? Or is that the body did what it could to fix what broke…” I trail off, counting backward from ten, gathering my thoughts. “But what exactly broke… with me… with him… I’m not sure, but it feels like I need to find out… somehow… about him… about myself… but how the fuck do I find out about him when the only person that truly knew what was real is… gone?” I blink and then click the screen off, and it goes black.
* * *
May 27, Day 7 of Summer Break
I started this ritual when I got to college. I wake up and count the seconds it takes for the sun to rise over the hill. It’s my way of preparing for another day I don’t want to prepare for, knowing that it’s another day to add to my list of days I’ve lived without Landon.
This morning worked a little differently, though. I’m home for my first summer break of college, and instead of the hills that surround Idaho, the sun advances over the immense Wyoming mountains that enclose Maple Grove, the small town I grew up in. The change makes it difficult to get out of bed, because it’s unfamiliar and breaks the routine I set up over the last eight months. And that routine was what kept me intact. Before it, I was a mess, unstable, out of control. I had no control. And I need control, otherwise I end up on the bathroom floor with a razor in my hand with the need to understand why he did it—what pushed him to that point. But the only way to do that is to make my veins run dry, and it turned out that I didn’t have it in me. I was too weak, or maybe it was too strong. I honestly don’t know anymore, what’s considered weak and what’s considered strong. What’s right and what’s wrong. Who I was and who I should be.
I’ve been home for a week, and my mom and stepfather are watching me like hawks, like they expect me to break down again, after almost a year. But I’m in control now. In control.
After I get out of bed and take a shower, I sit for exactly five minutes in front of my computer, staring at the file folder that holds the video clip Landon made before he died. I always give myself five minutes to look at it, not because I’m planning on opening it, but because it recorded his last few minutes, captured him, his thoughts, his words, his face. It feels like the last piece of him that I have left. I wonder if one day, somehow, I’ll finally be able to open it. But at this moment, in the state of mind I’m stuck in, it just doesn’t seem possible. Not much does.
Once the five minutes are over, I put on my swimsuit, then pull on a floral sundress over it and strap some leather bands onto my wrists. Then I pull the curtains shut, so Landon’s house will be out of sight and out of mind, before heading back to my computer desk to record a short clip.
I click Record and stare at the screen as I take a few collected breaths. “So I was thinking about my last recording—my first—and I was trying to figure out what the point of this is—or if there even had to be a point. “I rest my arms on the desk and lean closer to the screen, assessing my blue eyes. “I guess if there is a point, it would be for me to discover something. About myself or maybe about… him, because it feels like there’s still so much stuff I’m missing… so many unanswered questions and all the lack of answers leaves me feeling lost, not just about why the hell he did it, but about what kind of person I am that he could leave so easily… Who was I then? Who am I now? I really don’t know… But maybe when I look back and watch these one day far, far down the road, I’ll realize what I really think about life and I’ll finally get some answers to what leaves me confused every single day, because right now I’m about as lost as a damn bottle floating in gross, murky water. ”