The Program (The Program #1)(17)

“I just can’t . . . ,” Miller mumbles. “I can’t do it anymore. I followed Lacey to the Wellness Center and I tried to kiss her, to remind her. But she slapped me and reported me before I took off. My mom let it slip tonight that The Program is coming. They’re coming right now. But I won’t wait for them. I won’t let them take me.”

“Miller!” James shouts so loud I flinch. “What do you have?” Tears start streaming down James’s cheeks and he presses down on the accelerator, sending us over a hundred miles an hour.

“QuikDeath,” Miller mumbles. “I wish Lacey would have told me and we could have gone together. She wouldn’t have gotten hollowed out. We’d be together.”

“You can’t be together if you’re dead,” James says. He punches his fist hard on the steering wheel, and I’m crying, looking for James to fix this. To stop it. “Miller,” he says. “Don’t do this, man. Please?”

Miller sniffles. “It’s too late,” he says, sounding far away. “I took it ten minutes ago. But I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye.” He pauses. “I love you, guys.” Then the phone goes dead.

I gag, the emotion too strong for me to contain, and James slams on the brakes, guiding us to the shoulder. He grabs the phone from where it fell on the seat, immediately dialing 911.

He’s covering his face, his body racking in sobs. “My friend,” he yells into the phone. “He took QuikDeath. . . .”

I think I pass out then, because I don’t hear anything else.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE AMBULANCE IS GONE BY THE TIME WE GET TO Miller’s house. There’s no flurry of activity or sirens, so we know it’s too late. We sit for a long time, staring at his white house with its black shutters. James doesn’t hold my hand, and I don’t reach for his. We’re just quiet.

The sun sets behind the house and the living room light switches on. We can see Miller’s mother in the picture window, curled up on the couch. There’s another woman with her, talking and wandering around. James and I have been in houses after a death before, and it’s not a good place to be—not when we’re already so compromised.

“Miller was going to be eighteen in three months,” James says, his voice strangled, but he doesn’t bother to clear his throat. “He wouldn’t have been scared of The Program anymore. He wouldn’t have done this.”

It’s a question we often ask ourselves: Would we commit suicide without The Program, or does it help drive us there?

“I guess it doesn’t matter now,” I say, chills running over me as I continue to stare at Miller’s house. My Miller—my friend. The first day I met him he was playing with the Bunsen burner and my homework caught on fire. Instead of yelling and dropping it, he grabbed my Diet Coke and doused it. Then he looked over and asked if he could buy me another one.

He came camping with us, he cut school with us, he loved us. He was such a good guy and he was such a good friend, and I just can’t . . . I just can’t . . .

“Sloane,” James says, pulling my arm. But I’m rocking, banging my forehead against the window, trying to make the memories, the regret, the pain go away. I want to stop moaning because I don’t even know what I’m saying. But I can’t control myself. I can’t control anything.

And just then James slaps me, hard. I gasp in a breath, snapped out of my hysteria as my cheek stings. Normally James would have talked me down, held me to him. But instead his eyes are swollen and red from crying. His skin is blotchy and wet. I’ve never seen him look like this, and I touch my face, still stunned.

James hitches in labored breaths, his body nearly convulsing with them. I’ve stopped crying, but my head throbs from where I was banging it on the glass. James still says nothing and then looks past me to Miller’s house, just as the porch light clicks off. He whimpers, and I reach for him but he backs against the car door.

Slowly, he pulls the driver’s side handle and opens it, falling out onto the street. “What are you doing?” I manage to say. But he doesn’t look at me as he scrambles up, staring at the house with horror on his face. And then James turns and starts running, his sandals clapping on the pavement. I push open my door and scream after him. “James!” I yell, but he’s around the corner and out of my sight.

I can’t move at first. I’m hyperaware of everything around me, the orange haze low in the sky from the sunset. The trees swaying in the wind. I think about going up to Miller’s house and asking if I can lie in his bed for a while, feel close to him one last time. But that’s the kind of thing that gets you flagged.

Miller. I’ll never go with him to the river again. We’ll never have lunch again. He’ll never turn eighteen. Oh, God. Miller.

I blink, but no tears fall because my eyes are dried out and scratchy. I touch my cheek again where it still stings. It occurs to me that James didn’t say anything—he didn’t tell me I was being hysterical. He didn’t hold me and tell me to cry it out. He didn’t tell me it would be okay.

He didn’t say anything.

Suddenly my heart explodes with worry. I clamor all the way out of the passenger seat and race around the car, getting in the other side and slamming it into drive. I need to find James. I grab my phone from the center console and call him, my fingers trembling over the numbers.