The way she handles the deliveries like she owns the diner and not like she’s just working there for her folks makes me feel like a sorry excuse. We’re both seventeen, but she runs circles around me.
“Delilah,” her dad shouts. “Did that boy deliver those supplies yet?”
“He’s here now, Daddy,” Delilah calls from the doorway.
“Tell him I’m tired of his father sending us the crap no one else wants. Needing money is no excuse for being a cheat.”
I can feel the heat rushing up my face. I got my back to Delilah, but I know she can see how red my ears must be. My daddy ain’t no cheat, just stubborn and proud. He overcharges Delilah’s daddy because he knows they can afford it. Delilah’s daddy pays because they pity us. Least that’s what my daddy thinks. Which just makes him madder and more inclined to give Delilah’s daddy less.
If you ask me, Delilah’s daddy is just as stubborn and proud, and he overpays to prove how much better his business is doing. Of the two Reese families, Delilah’s is for sure the more successful. But they’re equal when it comes to foolish pride. Only in Stillwater would folks choose to do business with each other out of spite.
I busy myself with clearing a space for the last crate until I figure he’s gone. It ain’t like I haven’t heard it before, but I feel like a fool all the same. I keep my eyes straight ahead on my way out, and when I pass Delilah, she turns away.
Me and Delilah ain’t never gonna happen. I don’t know why I can’t get that through my head.
After I finish the deliveries, I drop the truck off and get on my bike before anyone decides they got something else for me to do. Once I get down the hill and through the town, there ain’t nothing but empty roads and clumps of trees and fields as far as the eye can see. I keep on going, anyways, just looking for some kind of sign that there’s a world out there worth escaping to.
There’s got to be more to life than Stillwater.
The air is so thick, I can’t hardly feel a breeze as I’m riding. It’s so humid, my wheels don’t even kick up any dust on the dirt road. Sweat runs down my face in little rivers.
Days like this, when I’m hating everything about my life and wishing the summer would end already, I like to push myself.
I focus on the sound of my tires on the dirt, my heavy breaths. I pretend I can pedal myself into a new life—I just have to keep going, ignore the heat, ignore the pain. Ride just a little bit further.
I ain’t stopping this time till I collapse. They’ll have to scrape me up off the ground. I grit my teeth and pedal harder, right down the middle of the road. All of a sudden, my bike slams into something and I’m flying. Not over the handlebars, but back, like someone snatched me up and threw me. I have just enough time to give the bike a shove away from my body before I hit the ground. My back slams down first and then my head. It don’t hurt as much as I expect. Just one bright white flash of pain and then the dark.
A hand grabs me by the jaw and gives my head a shake. “Holy crap, Pruitt! You all right?”
I open my eyes and see a face so much like my own that for a minute I think I’m hallucinating. Same slightly crooked nose, same dirty-blond hair, but shorter than I like to keep mine. He looks about my age, but his eyes are tired and older—an “old soul” my granny would call it—than mine could ever be.
He slaps my cheek and starts looking worried. “Pruitt, can you hear me?”
Matt. The name comes to me from the back of my mind. How could I forget my own brother? “Yeah,” I say, pushing his hand away. “What happened?”
He sits back, relief all over his face. “It’s what I wanted to show you.”
“What?” I’m lying in the middle of the road. Other than my bike and his, there’s nothing out here to see but trees.
Matt throws out his arms like he’s presenting something. “The Stillwater town limit.”
I start to lift myself up onto my elbows, but a sharp pain in my arm stops me. I suck air in through my teeth to keep from crying out. My right forearm is shredded. It’s gonna be one hell of a scar.
Matt’s eyes are all lit up and I can’t figure why he’s so excited. He’s not talking a lick of sense. “Why’d you have to knock me off my bike for that?”
“I didn’t,” he says, frowning at me. “Something ain’t right about this town. Can’t you feel it?”
“The only thing I feel is a knot coming up on the back of my head.”
Matt smacks my good arm and stands. “Jeez, Pruitt, why do you have to be such a kid sometimes?” He holds a hand out to me. “Get up.”
My head aches. I lie back down on the ground and shut my eyes against it. “Just gimme a minute.”
Matt ain’t having it. “Pruitt. Get up.”
I sigh real heavy so he knows I’m irritated before I open my eyes and sit up. “Fine,” I say, but I’m talking to the air. There ain’t no one out here but me. It takes a minute before I realize that’s how it should be. I came out here alone, and I don’t have a brother. I must’ve been dreaming, but it felt more like a memory. Like that déjà vu stuff people talk about. I guess that’s what I get for riding like a maniac. Crazy dreams about brothers I never had.
My hands and legs are all scratched up and bleeding, but when I lift my right arm to check the damage, there is none. Instead, I see the jagged scar I’ve had for as long as I can remember. That fall must’ve really done a number on me. I’m woozy but I manage to make it to standing. It’s gonna be a long walk home. Mama’s gonna love it when she sees me crawling in all scraped up and bloody, tracking in dirt on her kitchen floor. If I’m lucky, I can slip past her and say I’m taking a nap before she gets a good look at me. That’s all I want anyhow, to sleep this day away like none of it ever happened.
When I wake it’s dark out, and I got pieces of a dream clinging to me. Not enough to make any kind of sense, though. Just me and Matt again, feeling so much like he’s my big brother, out on the ridge at the edge of our land. I keep hearing his voice telling me: Something ain’t right about this town. And my gut keeps saying he’s right.
The clock says it’s after ten, which means my folks are out cold for the night. I’m wide-awake with nothing but time and a jumble of thoughts in my head. Might as well see if I can puzzle this thing out.
I climb out my window onto the porch roof and jump down to the grass. The sun might’ve gone down, but it’s still too hot to be decent. I miss the fan in my room already.
In the northeast corner of our property, where it meets Delilah’s, the land rises then drops off. We don’t farm that area, so it’s mostly still full of trees, but there’s a clearing where the ridge juts out over the dry creek bed, and that’s where I’m headed.
If the moon ain’t full, it’s as close as it can get and I’m glad for the light. I haven’t been out to the ridge at night since I was a kid. I’m not supposed to go out there alone on account of it’s dangerous, but I’ve never thought much of rules. Folks have been saying the ridge is cursed ever since the creek dried up forever ago. Seems like my whole life is cursed. I can’t see how going out to the ridge makes any difference.
The night air is sticky and heavy with the scent of pine, just like in my dream. The closer I get to the ridge, the more them pieces of my dream start making a whole picture.
I was following Matt down this same path. He made his way through the tangle of branches like he’d done it a hundred times before, and I was just trying to keep up. He’d woke me out of a dead sleep and all I wanted was to go back.