This Is Where the World Ends(25)

I sit. He hands me the bottle of whiskey. I drink until I almost puke.

“God,” I say, coughing. Some of the whiskey comes back up and sprays the grass, which is already frosty. “Isn’t Canadian whiskey supposed to be the good stuff?”

“This is the good stuff,” he says. “Just wait until we have to start into the shit wine. You know what you need? A cigarette. Shit offsets shit.”

I ignore him and take another swig. And another. Dewey watches me. I watch the other side of the quarry, where someone is running. “Is that Piper?”

“Hell if I know.”

“She’s always crying,” I say. “Every time I see her she’s crying.”

Dewey snorts. “And how often do you see her?”

Not very. But in school, when I was still in school. Sometimes, she runs by my house and she’s always crying.

Another swig. After a while, he tries to take the bottle back, but I lean out of reach and take another swig.

“Seriously, Micah,” he says. “How are you doing?”

“I’m cold,” I say.

“Micah—”

“I’m fine. My attitude is as bright as my future.”

“Micah, stop f*cking around—”

“I’m not,” I say. “I’m telling the truth.”

The truth, the truth. I’m a terrible liar. I take another drink. Dewey stares at me for a while, and then he starts talking about shit I don’t care about. He blows clouds around our heads and I drink until I forget.

Drink to forget.

Janie’s lips in my ear. “Take another shot.”

“. . . town is going to shit. I love it. You hear about Ander?”

Her breath soft against my cheek her lips in my ear her body warm against mine.

“Are you listening to me? Suey Park and a bunch of other people told the police that they saw Wes and Ander leaving Janie’s before the fire started, so I guess that idiot really didn’t set the fire. Shame, right?”

Her breath soft against my cheek her lips in my ear her body warm against mine her eyes colorless and glittering.

“I mean—shit. Don’t listen to me. Don’t worry about it, man. No one really thinks you did it. They just think that she—that you might have known . . . you know what? Never mind—Micah, what the hell are you doing?”

Her breath my cheek her lips my ear her body against mine her eyes her eyes glittering and colorless

and the only part of her face I can see

as she tells me to take another drink.

“Micah, Jesus, get away from there.”

The only part of her face I can see because she is backlit by the bonfire that rises higher

and higher as she tips my cup back whispering, “Just drink. Forget this. It’s okay. I promise, just drink, just forget.”

“She told me to forget,” I say, spitting the words so that they are real and outside my head. Spitting, as if the momentum will push the memory out. “We were on a lawn chair and under a blanket and the cup was electric blue and she made me drink and drink and told me to forget.”

“Micah.”

Lips breath warmth.

The whiskey is horrible in my mouth pleasant in my chest fire in my stomach. I take another swig, a long one, and then I say, “I think we did something. Janie and I.”

“Micah,” says Janie.

“We did something horrible.”

“Micah,” Janie says again. Her voice is burning. “Don’t.”

“What? She told you to do something and you scampered off to do it like her little bitch? Yeah, I’m not surprised.”

“She doesn’t want me to tell you.”

“The two of you were so f*cked up,” he says, but he isn’t taunting anymore. He takes a long drag on his cigarette and the tip burns the color of her hair. His voice is low and tight.

“She says that you can’t ever know.”

Dewey blinks, and then he’s squinting at me. “What?”

“Micah, stop talking. Stop talking now.”

“She wants me to stop talking,” I say.

“Micah. Micah, hey. Look at me.” He taps the side of my cheek. The cigarette is too close to my ear. I think I can see it burning out of the corner of my eye, but that could just be Janie. It could be her hair. “Micah, man. You’re saying she’s here? Now?”

“Yeah,” I say. “She says that she hates you.”

My legs are over the side of the ledge now. The water is far, far below, probably. The quarry is two hundred and nineteen feet deep. It is the deepest quarry in Iowa. It’s dark. I can’t see. I don’t remember when I got this close to the edge.

Dewey’s face is so white that it glows in the dark. “Dude, do you want me to—do I need to take you to the hospital or something?”

“Nah,” I say, and take another swig. “Damn, Dewey. Isn’t Canadian whiskey supposed to be the good stuff?”

The bottle is empty. The bottle goes flying. Dewey smacks it out of my hand and it goes flying. Distantly, there is a splash as it falls into the water.

I squint into the dark. “There’s like a five-hundred-dollar fine for littering.”

“Screw the fine.” He’s in my face. “There’s been, what, fifteen people who’ve died here in the last fifty years? If they can’t find their bodies, you think you’re going to find that stupid bottle? Look, Micah, listen to me—”