Bright Before Sunrise(41)

She smiles politely but turns away in dismissal. Turns to me. I take the napkin and use it to wipe the condensation off my cup. The digits blur to black-green starbursts. I’m an idiot. Next I’ll be tearing my shirt and beating my chest.

“Did you want this?” I ask, holding out the sodden, ink-stained mess.

She waves it away and gives me her perfectly imperfect grin. “Not even a little. You can keep it.”





22

Brighton

10:51 P.M.


14 HOURS, 9 MINUTES LEFT


Jonah does a decent job on the toxic pizza, stopping when only one slice remains on the tray. Does he actually like that flavor combination, or did he chose it to prove a point? I decide not to ask since we’re finally having a normal conversation. It’s like seeing his friends reminded him that kindness isn’t fatal.

Granted we’re only talking about college, how we both have no clue what we’ll pick as majors.

“One time, this guy my mom was seeing asked what I wanted to be after high school,” I say as we get back in his car. “I answered, ‘A college student,’ and he thought I was being rude or making fun of him because my answer was so vague. It was a mess; he was insulted and I felt awful.”

Jonah laughs and turns down another side street—a baseball rolls around in his backseat, pinging off something metal each time he turns. This street curves too, more roads and driveways branching off in all directions like a spider’s legs. There’s no logic to these streets, or to the houses either. Duplexes, capes, saltboxes, and a condo complex all share the same street. One house has a sign advertising a beauty salon out front. Two streets later there’s a house with a yard crammed full of bright plastic slides and toys. Maybe it’s actually a day care center? Some yards are landscaped and tidy, others have peeling paint and out-of-control weeds. We pass a building with plywood on the front windows. The houses are placed at random—some close to the street, others down long driveways. It’s like a giant opened his fist and sprinkled buildings—new, old, large, small—all over the landscape. It makes me uncomfortable—and the fact that I’m uncomfortable makes me more uncomfortable.

Jonah makes a sharp left turn.

“I don’t know how you can think Cross Pointe is hard to navigate. This is like a maze.”

He shrugs. “But in Cross Pointe everything looks the same. Here, we’ve got landmarks. There’s the park where I had Little League. Back there was the house we all thought was haunted. That stop sign is bent from when I hit it while Carly was trying to teach me to drive stick shift. And that’s the Digginses’ house.”

He pulls over, parking along the grass between two other cars. A long driveway leads back to a small, white two-story house. “We’re here.”

His words trigger my anxiety. I don’t want to unbuckle my seat belt or leave the car, or for him to remove the key from the ignition. “You could go to Cross Pointe parties instead. It’d be a whole lot closer and good for you.”

Jonah’s smile looks suspiciously sneerish, but he’s facing the windshield so I can only see half his face. “Good for me? How do you figure?”

Darn. Now I need an explanation. “Well, it’d be good for you because …” What would my father say? I search for a line from his book. “‘Adapting to change is an important life skill.’ You should embrace the fact that you live in Cross Pointe now and get involved.”

That sounds sufficiently sane and is actually pretty true. Jonah apparently isn’t a loner in Hamilton: the boys at the pizza place were cute and friendly; he has friends who throw parties and a girlfriend. For him to choose isolation now isn’t normal or healthy.

His jaw shifts like he’s grinding his teeth. “I leave for college in a few months, and I’m not coming back. Why bother?”

“Because you’re missing out on things. Aren’t you lonely? Everyone’s really nice.”

He continues staring out the window, the portion of his face I can see folded into disapproval. “They’re nice to you because you’re Brighton Waterford.”

He gets out of the car and I scramble to follow, protesting as I shut my door. “No. They’re just nice people! Do you know that everyone else in the school volunteered at least once this year? Wait, what does that mean? Because I’m me?” This has the flavor of an insult, but I’m not sure why.

He leans back against his car—the blue of his shirt blending with the blue frame in the semidarkness of the road. “Kindness is your social weapon of choice, but it only works because you’ve grown up within the system and it’s what people expect of you. You get to be the ‘nice one’ only because you’ve got everyone trained to think you’re so sweet and innocent.”

“Trained?” I sputter. I can’t even train Never. “That’s not true.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll prove it. Give me your cell phone.”

I hand it to him immediately … then realize I should ask: “Why do you want it?”

“Who’s your best friend?”

“Amelia.”

“Okay, I’m calling her.” He presses the speakerphone button, and the rings echo off the empty street.

“Hey, B! Finally! Where’ve you been? I called you hours ago! Are we still going to Jeremy’s, or do you want to rest up for tomorrow? I thought you’d be home early? How late does this couple stay out? I can’t remember the last time my parents were awake past nine thirty. Not that I’m complaining.”