Outside of Sabrina's party, the suburb was quiet this late on a Saturday night. Nothing stirred in the pools of light left by the streetlamps. A hot wind tossed around my long hair. To be safe, I leaned my elbow on the open window, covering my scar with my hand. I was really here, hanging out with John Cole. Hang would go nuts if she knew.
"Why didn't you give any interviews?" he asked, eyes on the road. "After it happened."
I didn't hurry to answer. The subject sat in my head behind warning signs and flashing lights. But if I was ever going to talk about it to anybody, it would be John.
He shot me a look out of the corner of his eye. "You didn't want the money?"
"I didn't want the attention and I didn't want to talk about it." Uncomfortable, I fidgeted with the seat belt, set a black bra strap back atop my shoulder. "All of the facts had already been reported. What was there to add, and why drag it out, anyway?"
He made a noise in his throat. God only knew what it meant.
"People died. The thought of turning that into entertainment for the masses did not appeal."
"Mm."
"What about you?" I asked.
"Didn't seem right."
"Did you get hassled on Instagram and all that?"
"Yeah," he said, pushing his hair back with a hand. "Just been ignoring them."
"I shut my accounts down. I kind of miss it, though. I mean, I only ever really put up pictures of books, but still."
He almost smiled.
"Hey. Did you have that guy from the local anti-gun lobby contact you?"
"No."
I huffed out a laugh. "They wanted me to be their new face, to give public talks and help them rally the youth to their cause."
"Seriously?"
"Oh yeah. I don't know, maybe I should have given it a try. I'm no fan of the NRA, obviously," I said. "But I do think meth had more to do with what happened than guns."
"Think he would have gotten as far with a knife?"
"Good question," I said. "I don't know. What do you think?"
"Lunatic like him all agitated like he was . . . maybe, maybe not."
"Hmm."
The road went on and on before us, the headlights cutting through the night.
"I can't even bring myself to talk about it to my mom," I said. "She keeps asking, thinking it might help, and . . . anyway. God knows what made them think I could give a speech about it in front of a crowd of strangers."
Nothing from him.
"I don't even want to think about it. But sometimes, it just gets stuck in your head, you know?"
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."
In an hour it would be the four-week anniversary. Almost a month since I'd watched two people get killed and had a gun in my mouth, John had risked death to save me, and I'd nearly shot Chris. Funny, it felt like it'd been both years and a moment since I'd left my youth and naivety behind police lines and crime scene tape.
"It's weird," I said, staring out at the houses flying past. "Now I know how much there is to be afraid of and it terrifies me. But at the same time, I feel like if I could live through that, what happened to us, then I can survive anything. Like, what is there really to be afraid of? Weird, huh?"
"No. Not really."
"It could have easily been us in the ground tonight."
"Nearly was," he said.
"And I don't know about you," I said, twisting in the seat, all the better to see his face, "but I'm probably not going to be curing cancer anytime soon. Why do we get to live while they died? It's all just random."
"It's not all random," he said, his eyes fixed on the road. "It was my idea."
"What was your idea?"
"That moment, at the Drop Stop, when Chris dragged you to the door." His eyes flickered over me, his gaze hooded with something that looked a lot like guilt. "I reached out and grabbed the neck of one of the unopened beers. To use as a weapon. Then I looked at Isaac to see if he'd back me up. That poor kid was white as a sheet, but he nodded. Just like that, in that split second, he made the decision to trust me. His drug dealer. Fucking insane, huh?"
"He was a hero," I said. "You both were."
"It's not random," he repeated. "He trusted the wrong guy, and now he's dead. Guess that's how it goes."
"What about the poor clerk? What did he do to deserve getting murdered?"
"What about Chris?" he countered. "Every step he took since he reached out to take his first hit of meth led him to that Drop Stop. Every choice he made just pushed him farther down that path."
I frowned in thought, my eyes scouring his face as he watched the road. "Is that why you gave up dealing?"
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, gaze shifting from the road to me, filled with guilt. I clamped my mouth shut. He didn't need me psychoanalyzing him. Both of us had too much of that bullshit in our lives already. And yet . . .
"You're not what caused that situation, John. You shouldn't blame yourself."
He said nothing for a good long time.
Rock music filled the small space, spilling out into the streets as we drove. A female voice sang about the night belonging to lovers.
"What's this song?" I asked.
"Patti Smith. It's pretty old. Hell, the car's probably older than both of us put together." He glanced at the cassette slot on the stereo, sounding a bit relieved that I'd changed the subject. "But the, ah, the tape's stuck in there."
"It's nice."
His long fingers tapped against the wheel while the palm of his other hand rested on the stick shift.
"Why do you do that?" he asked, nodding toward the hand I had braced against my forehead. His gaze returned to the road. "Because of the scar, right?"
"Yeah."
He shook his head. "You don't need to hide."
I had nothing.
We drove in silence to the lake. All of the dark and silent little beaches and parks surrounding it were known to be prime make-out places. Of course, it's not why we were there. In fact, I had no idea why we were there.
"Let's go," he said, climbing out of the car and tearing off his T-shirt. What the hell was it with this guy and being half-naked?
Honestly, I just wasn't sure how much more my heart and hormones could take since the self-love hadn't worked. One moment I'd been happily picturing John's hands, John's mouth. Heat curling down low inside of me. The next, I'd been back at the Drop Stop surrounded by blood, adrenaline crashing through me in terror. Nothing worked anymore; both my body and my mind were against me. I'd wanted to scream, put my fist through a wall. I was disconnected from everything.
"Go where?" I asked, standing beside the car and watching him start in on his shoes.
"Swimming. Come on, there's no crowd here."
Oh shit. "But what are we going to wear?"
He just stopped and looked at me.
"Underwear. Right. Forget I asked," I mumbled.
Half of a moon hung high in the sky. Better than a full one for sure, but still. On my list of things to do, stripping down in front of John did not feature strongly. Or really at all.
"Something wrong?" he asked, stepping out of his jeans. "You're not scared, are you?"
"No." Yes.
"You've jumped off the rock before, right?"
"The rock?" I looked around, at last taking full note of where exactly along the lake we were. "You want to jump off a cliff into the water in the dark? Are you insane?"
He threw back his head and laughed loud and long. Asshat.
The sound did strange things to me. "You're serious."
"Absolutely-hurry up." His jeans went onto the driver's-side seat, then he shut the door and leaned back. "I won't look if it makes you feel better."
"Shit."
"It's okay to be afraid, Edie. You just can't let it stop you from doing anything."
I could do this.
No. No, actually I couldn't.
Oh, God.
Hands shaking, I lowered the zipper and pulled the dress over my head. Wrestled off my boots and socks and stashed it all in the car. Thank God I'd worn a decent black lace bra and plain cotton boy shorts. "Let's go."
Grass and dirt beneath my feet and the heavens overhead doing the sparkling, twinkling thing. People jumped off the rock all summer long. It was almost like some rite of passage, to be stupid enough to jump off the cliff in the first place, and then to be a good enough swimmer to get back around to the beach. I'd never felt the need to complete that particular passage.
"Do you normally bring girls here?" I asked, following behind him up the trail. All those bouncy white bits of me were out of his sight with him in front. My hands still roved, covering my chest, holding back my belly, fumbling over my thighs. Stupid insecurities. Though seriously, what the ever-loving hell was I doing? The temptation to turn and run ate at me. No way could I imagine any of the cheerleaders and assorted others Hang had pointed out as being among John's special private-time friends going hiking in the middle of the night.
"No." Amusement filled his voice. "Anders and I come here sometimes, but that's it."