Page 11

I walk past the wheelbarrow without looking at Panda. The soft comfort of numbness is still with me, and I don’t want to shatter the calm. Even if calm is the wrong word, even if it would be more accurate to call it apathy, or resignation. That’s what I’d seen on Widow’s face when she looked up and saw me carrying her dead dog. A flash of awareness that the event had occurred, and then a settling wave of acceptance. It’s how she’s handled every loss I’ve witnessed at Restoration Acres; it’s how I feel when I wake up every day.

Mom is wrong about hope; resignation is what makes life livable.

Nine

Micah

We won the football game and are being honored as gods. Which means the Brimley’s is flowing freely, everyone is smiling, and half a dozen teenagers are passed out in Ethan’s yard. I am straight up not having a good time, mostly because I just saw Cassie wander off to the back acre with two guys, and I’m not sure what my responsibilities are here. I’m getting to my feet—a little unsteadily—and moving to follow them, when Hailey is suddenly beside me, red, flushed circles of drunkenness high on both cheeks.

“Hey, floppy dick,” she says, and that sends everything into overdrive.

Did Cassie tell her? Does everyone know? Why does she have to be so pretty? Why do I have to love the little half lift on one side of her mouth, which is totally a smirk? And why does she always have to put herself in front of me when I’m at my weakest?

“Gonna puke,” I say, and shove Hailey out of the way.

I make it past the bonfire and halfway to the pole barn before that particular lie becomes a truth. I flop over onto my ass and lean against a tree, thankful that I managed to find a dark spot where the security lights don’t reach. No witnesses to me horking up three beers is a gift because, honestly, How would it look?

“God,” I say, my head falling back against a tree. It’s not the beginning of a prayer, a statement, or even a question. It’s just a syllable that falls out of me sometimes, usually when I’m looking at Hailey and remembering what happened and wishing I could forget. So maybe it is a prayer, after all. One that I never get around to finishing because I don’t know what the rules are for redemption, but I’m pretty sure part of it is admitting what you did.

There’s an eruption of laughter from the back acre, followed by a nervous, high giggle. Shit, Cassie. I got all wrapped up in myself and forgot about her, which makes me the opposite of a hero. Maybe that’s why I sat with Ava that night, not because I’m a good guy, but because I’m trying to balance the cosmic scales so that when I die I can at least produce some kind of pie chart of Micah Harding’s Good Deeds, one that doesn’t look like what would happen if Pac-Man got lockjaw. I get a visual of me standing in front of the pearly gates with a tripod stand and a laser pointer, making an argument for myself, St. Peter to the side, arms crossed. I smile, but it’s wiped away quickly when the visual expands and there’s an audience.

Oh shit, is that what it’s like? Do they actually read off all the bad shit you’ve done and there’s a vote or something? And who all is there? Is it just the people who died at the same time you did, or is it like everybody . . . ever? Fuck no, Grandpa would be so disappointed—

Does everybody always carry an intense shame with them? The dread weight of the one thing they can’t escape?

I bet Ava Germaine doesn’t. She’s someone who doesn’t do bad shit; she calls it out. Someone who speaks truth to power and stares down those who are bigger, stronger, and faster than her. Someone who is way fucking braver than me.

Or at least she used to be, until something happened to her.

The low rumble of a male voice reaches me, and Cassie’s high laughter rings out again. Is there an edge on it, or is she actually okay? Am I about to save her, or really fuck up what was about to become a good time for someone else? I remember Ava, her finger in Ethan’s face in the hallway, her words driving nails into the placid calm of his ever-confident smile.

“Just because Emily sent the pics doesn’t mean she wanted to,” Ava had said. “Sometimes girls do shit we don’t want to do because we’re scared of the consequences if we don’t. It’s called fawning, it’s a recognized trauma response, and it means that we’re trying to neutralize a threat by placating it.”

Is that what’s happening right now? Is Cassie just doing what she thinks she has to in order to keep those guys happy, so she won’t get hurt? I stumble through the trees and come out into the field, where I can see a circle of phone lights and the bright flash of Cassie’s blond head. She’s on her knees. I speed up, a flare of white-hot anger tearing across my chest.

“Hey!” I yell, shoving aside one of the guys, who drops his phone.

“What the fuck, man?” he yells.

Cassie looks up. “Hey, Micah. You here for the pussy?”

The other guys laugh, and I don’t know who to punch first until I realize that Cassie is on all fours because she’s petting a cat.

“Oh . . . sorry,” I say, reaching down to pick up the phone, and handing it back to its owner, who it turns out is Rod Jennings. He’s the president of the local Adopt a Highway foundation and spends his Saturdays picking up empty wine bottles along the roadside, most of which are probably Mom’s. But people think I’m a good guy, too—and I know better.

“You okay?” I ask Cassie, whose smile fades a little when she understands what I’m asking.

“Yeah, Micah, I’m okay,” she says, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “But . . . thanks.”

I can’t be here anymore. I can feel the agitation starting to rise; one side effect of being able to quiet my mind for even a few hours is that all my worries find another place in my body to live. Sometimes it’s my stomach, and I walk around on the verge of puking. Sometimes it’s my spine, and I feel like there’s a live wire snaking through my body, an electrical surge that can’t find a way to spend itself as it bounces off the walls that are my skin. And sometimes it’s deep in my gut, a rising pressure that balloons into my throat, a scream threatening to escape.

And if I ever start screaming, I’m afraid of what I’ll say.

Ten

Ava

When I show up at Restoration Acres at six on Saturday morning, Widow gives me a stern look. I’ve never beaten her to work—which isn’t surprising, since her old farmhouse is forty yards from the main office—but this is the first time I’ve caught her with an unfinished coffee in her hand.