the daytime: the way their eye sockets turned to brownish caves in the harsh, high sun; the way the shadows settled grotesquely in the furrows of their faces; the dimpled and gravelly fat that revealed itself in pockets on their thighs and triceps.
I hated the way their eyes seemed to pierce me, hated their endless questions about my plans, my plans.
I had tried again and again to see myself gone. I closed my eyes and turned my mind toward September—walking the long, paved paths that lined the quad; lounging in the hallways of a well-worn dormitory; laughing alongside dozens of fresh-faced kids, the new friends I hadn’t yet met. I struggled to hear it: the clicking keys of students at work; the cacophony of a cafeteria with no shushing chaperones or watchful adults; the crunch of future feet over fallen leaves shot through with orange and ochre.
I couldn’t hold it. It was the ghost of what would have been; it turned transparent and disintegrated as I watched. It turned to dust—sunbaked and tinged with blood, swirling so thick and hot that it blocked out tomorrow.
And when I was alone, a small, sneering voice inside my head would whisper, “Serves you right.”
Because this was what happened to girls who make plans. The overconfident, the forward-looking, the ones who mapped their futures and filed them away, so sure that the world would embrace them. I had had mine forever—a five-year blueprint, a series of boxes to be checked, a recipe for escape that I drew up and then set aside, believing that it would simply stay just as I’d left it. That it was meant to happen just so. That the summer would slip blissfully by, and nothing would change, not until the very last moment, bittersweet but must-do, when I packed my life into the trunk of a car and left behind my high school sweetheart. Just as we’d always known I would. I knew just how it would go; I’d planned it out in theatrical detail, framing the scene with cinematic nuance. The words we would both say; the wistful smile that would play on James’s lips; the tears that would fill my eyes and crack my voice, but never fall. The last rays of sun would light the space between us, glowing gold between our tilted faces while we kissed each other good-bye.
I knew just how he would look, growing smaller in my rearview, standing still and tall like a slender reed in the dying light.
That’s how it was meant to end; we would kiss, and cry, and play our roles to perfection.
He was not supposed to pull my plans out from under me. My beautiful, brilliant blueprints were not supposed to be torn in two and cast aside. The summer was not supposed to start with something so brutally broken.
There was not supposed to be blood on the road.
That girl, dead and gone, her spirit trapped forever just inside town limits—she’d come from someplace, was going somewhere. Until destiny had stepped into the road in front of her, stopped her forward motion, drawn a killing claw across the white, fluttering swell of her future. Whispering, “Oh no, you don’t.”
When you made plans, the saboteurs came out to play.
* * *
A long, thin cigarette emerged from behind Lindsay’s ear; she put a flame to the end. I watched her lips part and then come together again, wrapping wetly around the filter. She did this at parties, sucking with self-conscious gusto at the tip, allowing her cheeks to hollow with the effort and enjoying the captivated looks on the faces of nearby boys.
I was staring.
“What?” she said.
I blinked, then shook my head, leaning back against the cool brick and forcing a laugh. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
She laughed—genuine, unlike mine, unself-conscious and easy. She exhaled lazily, tilting her head back and watching as the smoke lifted in languid curls toward the rooftop. “Force of habit,” she said, then shook her head and grinned again.
I rolled my head against the wall. The brick barely touched the side of my cheek. It was
I hated the way their eyes seemed to pierce me, hated their endless questions about my plans, my plans.
I had tried again and again to see myself gone. I closed my eyes and turned my mind toward September—walking the long, paved paths that lined the quad; lounging in the hallways of a well-worn dormitory; laughing alongside dozens of fresh-faced kids, the new friends I hadn’t yet met. I struggled to hear it: the clicking keys of students at work; the cacophony of a cafeteria with no shushing chaperones or watchful adults; the crunch of future feet over fallen leaves shot through with orange and ochre.
I couldn’t hold it. It was the ghost of what would have been; it turned transparent and disintegrated as I watched. It turned to dust—sunbaked and tinged with blood, swirling so thick and hot that it blocked out tomorrow.
And when I was alone, a small, sneering voice inside my head would whisper, “Serves you right.”
Because this was what happened to girls who make plans. The overconfident, the forward-looking, the ones who mapped their futures and filed them away, so sure that the world would embrace them. I had had mine forever—a five-year blueprint, a series of boxes to be checked, a recipe for escape that I drew up and then set aside, believing that it would simply stay just as I’d left it. That it was meant to happen just so. That the summer would slip blissfully by, and nothing would change, not until the very last moment, bittersweet but must-do, when I packed my life into the trunk of a car and left behind my high school sweetheart. Just as we’d always known I would. I knew just how it would go; I’d planned it out in theatrical detail, framing the scene with cinematic nuance. The words we would both say; the wistful smile that would play on James’s lips; the tears that would fill my eyes and crack my voice, but never fall. The last rays of sun would light the space between us, glowing gold between our tilted faces while we kissed each other good-bye.
I knew just how he would look, growing smaller in my rearview, standing still and tall like a slender reed in the dying light.
That’s how it was meant to end; we would kiss, and cry, and play our roles to perfection.
He was not supposed to pull my plans out from under me. My beautiful, brilliant blueprints were not supposed to be torn in two and cast aside. The summer was not supposed to start with something so brutally broken.
There was not supposed to be blood on the road.
That girl, dead and gone, her spirit trapped forever just inside town limits—she’d come from someplace, was going somewhere. Until destiny had stepped into the road in front of her, stopped her forward motion, drawn a killing claw across the white, fluttering swell of her future. Whispering, “Oh no, you don’t.”
When you made plans, the saboteurs came out to play.
* * *
A long, thin cigarette emerged from behind Lindsay’s ear; she put a flame to the end. I watched her lips part and then come together again, wrapping wetly around the filter. She did this at parties, sucking with self-conscious gusto at the tip, allowing her cheeks to hollow with the effort and enjoying the captivated looks on the faces of nearby boys.
I was staring.
“What?” she said.
I blinked, then shook my head, leaning back against the cool brick and forcing a laugh. “Are you trying to seduce me?”
She laughed—genuine, unlike mine, unself-conscious and easy. She exhaled lazily, tilting her head back and watching as the smoke lifted in languid curls toward the rooftop. “Force of habit,” she said, then shook her head and grinned again.
I rolled my head against the wall. The brick barely touched the side of my cheek. It was
Similar Books
