Playlist for the Dead(44)

That screen fell over her face again. Maybe I had gone too far. “Yeah, I told him about it,” she said, finally. “He thought it was too weird. He liked the soundtrack, though.”

Now I had one piece of the puzzle. I wondered if she’d given him the other music, but I didn’t want to push her away again. “It’s a great song,” I said. “What else is on the soundtrack?”

She looked relieved, and we talked about music and movies as we walked to Eric’s house. Astrid, like me, was mostly into alternative stuff; we talked about how impossible it was to find anything good on the radio, which bands we liked. I paid close attention to see how many of them were on the playlist, but either she wasn’t Athena or she was being careful—most of the bands she told me about were ones I already listened to, so there was no way to tell whether she’d given him the new stuff. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want her to be Athena, for reasons I wasn’t sure I entirely understood, but I also didn’t know what the alternative was.

“So, this playlist,” she said. “Can I hear something else from it? Do you have your iPod?”

“Always,” I said, and got it out of my pocket. I thought about what song to play for her. There were so many darkly beautiful songs on there, but they were so sad, and I didn’t want to bring the mood back down. I wondered if I should make it a test—pick one of the songs I hadn’t heard before and see if she knew it—but I wasn’t sure what I wanted her to say. Finally I chose one, and we shared earbuds again, like we had the day of Hayden’s funeral.

We walked and listened, the air growing cooler around us, the sun setting as we went, shades of red and pink and purple that seemed to make the cornfields glow. I hoped she was focusing on the part I wanted her to, about being the one if she wanted me to. I didn’t want the song to end, but it did. It had to.

I stopped walking for a minute and pulled her close to me as the last notes played. We’d kissed, sure, but we hadn’t hugged yet, and it felt so good to hold her so tightly, to feel her body line up with mine. She was almost as tall as I was, which seemed perfect just then.

“Has it helped?” she asked.

“Has what helped?”

“The playlist. Has it helped you understand?”

I thought about it for a minute. “Not yet,” I admitted. “But I’m starting to see that maybe it wasn’t all about me.”

“That’s a start,” she said.

And for now, it would have to be enough.



WE STARTED WALKING AGAIN and turned onto a dirt road with no name, just a number. “Eric lives here?” I asked, stupidly. I hadn’t been sure what to expect from hipster Eric, with his spats and his skinny pants, but I definitely hadn’t called him living on a farm. Because there was no question that we were now on one. White house, red barn, sheep, pigs, chickens—it was all there.

“Not what you pictured?” Astrid laughed. “His family runs this place. All organic, self-sustaining, no genetically modified anything. They sell meat and produce at farmers’ markets all over the state.”

“So Eric is rebelling against all of this?”

“Not at all. He’s super into it. He’s got his own garden, and he sells his stuff at the markets with them when he can. He drives the tractor. Even knows how to fix it.”

For some reason this was blowing my mind.

“You’re not the only one who has another life outside of school,” she said.

“Good point.” She’d nailed it, but even more than that, I was embarrassed at all the many different assumptions I’d made about Eric that had turned out to be wrong. He wasn’t Astrid’s boyfriend; he wasn’t some stereotypical hipster; the fact that he was gay didn’t mean he didn’t get along with his family.

Was I just as bad as everyone else? I hoped not.

From where we were standing, the farm looked idyllic. The sun had just about set, and the last faint hints of red lit up the white house. “Come on,” Astrid said, and ran toward the door. Before I could catch up, before she even had a chance to knock, she was surrounded by a throng of children and dogs, all of whom seemed to know her. The kids all had varying shades of blond curly hair and were probably no older than eight; the dogs were a mix of yellow and chocolate Labs, as far as I could tell.

“Astrid’s here!” the kids yelled, while the dogs took turns jumping on her legs and slobbering on her face. It didn’t look all that pleasant, but she had this enormous grin on her face, which made me grateful I didn’t have to rescue her. I am not a dog person.

“You came to play with us, right?” the oldest kid asked. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl; all the kids were wearing jeans and sweatshirts and their curls were kind of long.

“Not this time, I’m afraid,” Astrid said.

“You’re always here for Eric!” another kid whined good-naturedly.

“Someday it will be just about us, I promise,” Astrid said. “Now are you going to let us in or what?”

Almost as quickly as the crowd of dogs and kids had gathered, it disappeared, and the door opened. “He’s in the attic,” a voice called out. “As usual.”

“That would be Eric’s mom,” Astrid said. She led me into the house and through an enormous open kitchen, where a woman in basically the same outfit as the kids was standing over a deep farm sink doing something that appeared to involve pulling the feathers off a chicken. I looked closer. Yep, that’s what she was doing. “Hi, Mrs. Sueppel. This is my . . . this is Sam.”