my breathing has stopped.
So this is how I die.
Crack!
I feel a blast of heat blaze past me, and when I open my eyes, the dog is yelping, as if it‘s been sucker punched, and tumbling down into the abyss, away, away.
But the problem is, so are the stone steps.
As I start to fall, I snatch out wildly and just manage to grab on to an exposed tree root. My feet are dangling into nothingness, and across the chasm the other dogs have receded because they know they have won. I can‘t hold on to this root forever and my backpack is too heavy and my mind is thwarted by the obliterating fear that any second I will lose my grip. I can‘t focus to use my powers; all I can do is gaze down in horror, seeing nothing, seeing my life, everything I did and everything I didn‘t do…And I should have been looking up, because when I do, I see it there, waiting to save me.
A hand.
I grab it and he lifts me up easily. It‘s a swift and serene reemergence, like coming up from the water after a dive. As I hunch to catch my breath, I feel that same hand squeezing my shoulder, a gentle and deliberate touch that feels like home.
―Curly,‖ he says. ―I‘m going to ask you one more time. You want some company?‖
He‘s even cuter than I remembered, my Blondie, and it‘s the easiest and truest word I‘ve ever said in my life: ―Yes.‖
Chapter 18
It begins with me telling one lie after another. When he asks how I made it across the chasm, I tell him there was a bridge that collapsed. When he asks why I fled the cantina, I tell him I felt sick to my stomach. When he asks where I spent the night, I tell him I went home to my parents. And that‘s a double lie that sits particularly badly in my gut. The worst part is that he seems to believe all of it, and the best part is that he doesn‘t ask me if I‘m a goddess, which tells me that the waitress must have refrained from saying anything. Thank you, weird spider waitress.
We‘re on different planets, Blondie and I, because he gets to tell the truth. He tells me that he figured I took off and went hunting and then went home. He tells me that he stayed in the cantina because he loves that kind of debate. He says that he‘s been bored with his friends and that it‘s always refreshing to go to the woods and hang out around the creatures that live such a different life.
I‘m forced to lie and he‘s allowed to be truthful and it doesn‘t seem fair, but then again, it might be for the best. After all, CeeCee says that the best relationships always start with a little secrecy, that you don‘t have to reveal everything in the beginning. To this day, for instance, she won‘t tell me exactly what happened last April when she was involved—I think—with the class mute, Anton Baird. Literally, he doesn‘t speak. Ever. Anyway, all I know is this: CeeCee and Anton, who also never tweets or Facebooks, were alone in the infirmary for a day. She had chicken pox. He had…something.
In the week that followed, CeeCee turned into Anton 2.0. She didn‘t talk.
Or tweet. Or Facebook. And then, for no apparent reason, she returned to normal CeeCee.
She won‘t ever talk about Anton or what happened. Part of me thinks that they were in love, even if only for a few days, even if they didn‘t say a word to each other, that they forged some bond in their silent time together.
Of course, it‘s not easy to tell stories to Blondie. I can‘t say that I‘m in school, so when he asks what Greeley is, I have to say that it‘s a village.
Naturally, I can‘t mention Twitter or Facebook, so I put them both under the ―village meeting‖ umbrella. And in this way, talking to Blondie is an exciting exercise, like ice-skating on a frozen pond. Sure, an indoor man-made rink is smoother, but on a pond, you have to have your wits about you and avoid the cracks and natural bumps on the surface.
―Let me ask you something, Curly.‖ Oh, yes. Those are officially our names now, Curly
So this is how I die.
Crack!
I feel a blast of heat blaze past me, and when I open my eyes, the dog is yelping, as if it‘s been sucker punched, and tumbling down into the abyss, away, away.
But the problem is, so are the stone steps.
As I start to fall, I snatch out wildly and just manage to grab on to an exposed tree root. My feet are dangling into nothingness, and across the chasm the other dogs have receded because they know they have won. I can‘t hold on to this root forever and my backpack is too heavy and my mind is thwarted by the obliterating fear that any second I will lose my grip. I can‘t focus to use my powers; all I can do is gaze down in horror, seeing nothing, seeing my life, everything I did and everything I didn‘t do…And I should have been looking up, because when I do, I see it there, waiting to save me.
A hand.
I grab it and he lifts me up easily. It‘s a swift and serene reemergence, like coming up from the water after a dive. As I hunch to catch my breath, I feel that same hand squeezing my shoulder, a gentle and deliberate touch that feels like home.
―Curly,‖ he says. ―I‘m going to ask you one more time. You want some company?‖
He‘s even cuter than I remembered, my Blondie, and it‘s the easiest and truest word I‘ve ever said in my life: ―Yes.‖
Chapter 18
It begins with me telling one lie after another. When he asks how I made it across the chasm, I tell him there was a bridge that collapsed. When he asks why I fled the cantina, I tell him I felt sick to my stomach. When he asks where I spent the night, I tell him I went home to my parents. And that‘s a double lie that sits particularly badly in my gut. The worst part is that he seems to believe all of it, and the best part is that he doesn‘t ask me if I‘m a goddess, which tells me that the waitress must have refrained from saying anything. Thank you, weird spider waitress.
We‘re on different planets, Blondie and I, because he gets to tell the truth. He tells me that he figured I took off and went hunting and then went home. He tells me that he stayed in the cantina because he loves that kind of debate. He says that he‘s been bored with his friends and that it‘s always refreshing to go to the woods and hang out around the creatures that live such a different life.
I‘m forced to lie and he‘s allowed to be truthful and it doesn‘t seem fair, but then again, it might be for the best. After all, CeeCee says that the best relationships always start with a little secrecy, that you don‘t have to reveal everything in the beginning. To this day, for instance, she won‘t tell me exactly what happened last April when she was involved—I think—with the class mute, Anton Baird. Literally, he doesn‘t speak. Ever. Anyway, all I know is this: CeeCee and Anton, who also never tweets or Facebooks, were alone in the infirmary for a day. She had chicken pox. He had…something.
In the week that followed, CeeCee turned into Anton 2.0. She didn‘t talk.
Or tweet. Or Facebook. And then, for no apparent reason, she returned to normal CeeCee.
She won‘t ever talk about Anton or what happened. Part of me thinks that they were in love, even if only for a few days, even if they didn‘t say a word to each other, that they forged some bond in their silent time together.
Of course, it‘s not easy to tell stories to Blondie. I can‘t say that I‘m in school, so when he asks what Greeley is, I have to say that it‘s a village.
Naturally, I can‘t mention Twitter or Facebook, so I put them both under the ―village meeting‖ umbrella. And in this way, talking to Blondie is an exciting exercise, like ice-skating on a frozen pond. Sure, an indoor man-made rink is smoother, but on a pond, you have to have your wits about you and avoid the cracks and natural bumps on the surface.
―Let me ask you something, Curly.‖ Oh, yes. Those are officially our names now, Curly
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