The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(63)

“That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t even want milk.”

“I don’t mind,” my mom said, putting a hand on my arm and smiling. But up close, I could see this sadness buried in her eyes. “I could use a little fresh air. And a couple minutes to myself.”

An hour later, she’d be alone forever.

“Wylie!” I’m still running, but there’s a voice behind me now. Not far behind, either. Letting my mind drift slowed me down. Let someone close the gap.

I try to run harder, faster. But as soon as I pick up speed, my foot catches something—a root, a twig. It stops. And the rest of my body tumbles on, airborne. A second later, there’s a sharp pain in my palms, and my left knee is on fire.

“Wylie! Are you okay?”

I grab for my knee, bending myself over the pain. Goddamn it. So stupid. Now I’m stopped. Still alive. Still awake. Still here. Now I will never catch the answers I was running after. I’ll never catch her.

“Are you okay?” It’s Quentin. He’s crouching down next to me.

“I’m fine,” I say through gritted teeth. Luckily, there’s no blood, only scratches and a lot of dirt. And my shame. How can I have a father who would lie to me this much? “I just needed some air.”

“And a good sprint,” he says quietly, as he crouches next to me. But not like he wants or needs an explanation. “Are you hurt?”

My hands are still stinging and my knee is throbbing, but there is still no blood.

“I’m fine,” I say again, feeling sore and embarrassed.

“I was yelling your name,” Quentin says, still crouched on the ground. He looks confused. “It’s really not safe to be out here in the woods. We send people out to check once every few hours to see if anybody—but it’s not like we’re experts in walling a perimeter.” He looks around, deeper into the woods. “These people, they are trained.”

“Yeah, I know. Believe me,” I say. “And you didn’t have to run after me.”

As nice as Quentin seems, I didn’t ask him to rescue me. Part of me even wishes that North Point would just shoot me. Because I might have halfway survived my mom dying in a car accident, but I will not survive if my dad could have prevented it.

“I’m sorry.” Quentin looks around, then up at me before finally standing. “About your mom, about all of this. Seems like you’re kind of caught in the middle, and that sucks.”

“Sucks. That’s one word for it,” I say, and probably too snidely. None of this is Quentin’s fault. But I can’t do this right now, pretend that he’s making me feel better.

“I guess sucks would be an understatement.” He shakes his head. “Listen, my dad died when I ten, and it pretty much killed everything. Or I wished it had. Even now, it’s like the color of the world is off.” He flicks his eyes toward me, then back down into the leaves. But I know exactly what he means: the world forever shifted off its axis. “Anyway, I’m not saying I know how you feel, because I hate when people do that. But maybe I get it more than most.”

There is a loud crack then, some distance off in the woods.

“What was that?” I ask, my heart thumping. Because one thing has jumped to mind: a gunshot.

“Um, I don’t know. Hunters, maybe?” But Quentin sounds nervous. “We should probably get out of here just in case.” Another crack in the distance, louder this time. “Come on.”

Quentin reaches down and helps me to my feet. As I follow him through the trees back toward the main cabin, I brace for another pop, but there is only the crunching of leaves beneath our feet.

“That wasn’t North Point, though,” Quentin says as we finally emerge from the trees.

“How do you know?”

“They don’t miss,” he says, half smiling. “Also, I should thank you, because this little excursion has taught me something important about myself.”

“What’s that?”

He turns to look at me. “I do not thrive on danger.”

“What happened to your dad?” I ask once we’re crossing the open grass toward the cabin.

Because I already know that not all orphans are created equal—an illness, a history of drug use, years of estrangement beforehand. Suffering can be a bomb or a slow burn. Or, in my case, a nuclear winter.

It’s not that one is necessarily harder than another. Actually, that’s a lie. That’s me being polite. I do think what happened to me—out of the blue, no chance for good-bye, no chance to prepare—is worse. And now it looks like I’ll have the pleasure of my mom dying twice: first the lie and then the truth.

“He was in this deli around the corner from our walk-up in Dorchester,” Quentin says. “Some guy came in to rob the place, started beating up the old man who worked there. My dad stepped in and got shot in the neck.” Quentin shakes his head and looks down. “Want to know the worst part?”

“Yes,” I say, probably sounding too glad that there is an even worse part.

“He went there to buy orange juice for me.”

The hairs on my arms stand on end. “What did you just say?”

He looks up from the leaves. “He was buying orange juice for me?”

“My mom died on her way to buy milk for me.”