I sit up, too, and fight the urge to grab her hand and beg her to stay when she stands. “I should get back. Early start tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” She cocks her head and smiles at me. “You’re all right, Pruitt. You know, for a Reese.”
I feel myself grinning like a fool. “You ain’t so bad yourself.”
She laughs as she backs toward the trees, and it makes me brave. “Maybe I’ll see you out here tomorrow night?”
“Maybe,” she calls over her shoulder, just before she gets out of sight.
I stay right in that spot, my face aching with the smile I can’t wipe off, till Delilah’s been gone long enough to reach her house. Then I let out a shout.
She doesn’t hate me.
I know I should get on home, but I don’t want the night to end yet. I’m afraid if I go to sleep, I’ll wake up and find that none of this ever happened.
Knowing that Delilah hates living in Stillwater as much as I do has got me wired, so wired that it takes me a moment to realize that things have gone quiet. Too quiet. My mind flashes back to my dream. I remember how, just before the lights showed up, it was dead silent then, too. Almost like the whole world went to sleep, and only me and Matt were awake to see.
I look over to the ridge and everything beyond it is dark. Above it the sky’s split in two. Stars—not stars. Like one of them black holes they have in space just sucked up part of the world. I walk to the edge of the ridge and wait.
It starts with a sound. A faint whoosh, and then another, and then the black in front of me flickers in and out. Behind it are tiny points of light all red and white and orange. I can hear cars driving, and the hum of streetlights, and underneath it all, the faint sound of water, lapping at a shore.
It takes every bit of strength I have to keep standing. I pinch my arm hard, but nothing changes. There’s a whole world out there. So close I can almost touch it. I can smell it—exhaust fumes and smoke and this metallic scent that must come from the city. Moonlight glints off something below me and I look down. In the place where the dried-out creek bed should be there’s a pool of water.
I follow the faint ripples to the shore. And what I see there knocks my legs out from under me. A great big rock sits close to the edge of the water. Painted on it in big, white letters is a message. For me.
PRUITT
JUMP!
—MATT
On my hands and knees, I read that rock over and over. It wasn’t a dream. Matt’s real. He got out.
All of a sudden, a heavy wind starts blowing. It pushes me back, away from the edge of the cliff. I press my back against a boulder and watch as my view of the outside world gets smaller and smaller. The black closes in around Matt’s message until there’s nothing left but darkness. Then the wind settles down and just like that, I’m alone, wondering if I lost my mind.
I’m shaking something fierce. My heart’s fixing to beat right out of my chest. I don’t know what I’m more afraid of, the idea that I’m crazy or the idea that this might be real.
But it ain’t till I stand up and turn around that I realize I didn’t know the meaning of the word scared. ’Cause scratched into the rock I’ve just been leaning on is another message:
DON’T FALL ASLEEP
But that ain’t even the craziest part. The craziest part is that I recognize the handwriting.
It’s mine.
My message said not to fall asleep and I’m taking it to heart. I’m on my third pot of coffee when the sun starts to rise. My thoughts have been running around in my head all night, but there’s only one that’s dug its heels in and stuck—I ain’t leaving without Delilah.
Far as I can figure, last night wasn’t the first time I saw that hole open up in the sky. What I don’t get is why I don’t remember. And how I could forget my own brother. But I got all day to work that out. First, I need to see Delilah.
“Pruitt? Did you make the coffee?” Mama stands in the kitchen doorway looking perplexed. She usually has to drag me out of bed in the morning.
“I thought I’d get an early start for a change,” I tell her.
“Well, isn’t that nice.” She gets herself a mug from the cabinet and ruffles my hair on the way to the coffeepot. “Your father will be impressed.”
She smiles at me and I smile back, but we both know that ain’t true. Nothing I do will ever impress him. “I best get going, then.”
I make sure to kiss her cheek on my way out of the house. Seeing my mama makes me realize I’ve been considering running off and leaving without so much as a good-bye. My daddy will probably say “good riddance” when I’m gone, but Mama, well, that just seems cruel.
I skip my usual deliveries and go straight to the Stillwater Café. Delilah is just tying on her apron when I burst through the door.
“Delilah,” I practically shout. “You won’t believe what happened last night!”
Delilah just stares at me with her eyes all wide. “What?”
“Last night after you left, it was—” The words dry up in my mouth. Delilah’s looking at me like I’m spouting nonsense.
“What are you talking about?”
My heart’s racing and I can’t tell if it’s from the coffee or something else. “Last night, up at the ridge?” If she don’t remember, I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
She shakes her head back and forth real slow.
I want to take her by the arms and shake her or something, but I just stand there with my hands out like I’m begging. “We saw each other, remember?”
“I was nowhere near the ridge last night.”
She’s looking me dead in the eye, so I know she ain’t lying. The way she’s standing there with her arms crossed and frowning at me, it’s like the whole night never even happened for her.
Then I notice she’s wearing her red Stillwater High T-shirt, just like yesterday, and it all makes sense—what Matt meant about a full night’s sleep making you forget, why I left that message for myself, why Delilah keeps having that dream.
“All right, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but you know that dream you have about us all being stuck inside a snow globe?”
Her mouth drops open. “How do you know about that?”
The coffee’s got my mouth sped up and my words tumble out all over each other. “You don’t remember, but you told me. And it’s true, I can prove it. I found the opening last night, and I think you’ve seen it, too.” I reach for her without thinking, and my hands are on her shoulders before I can stop myself. “Meet me up at the ridge tonight, a little before midnight, and I’ll show you.”
Delilah stares up at me like she’s trying to figure me out, and my heart kicks up just from having her eyes on me so long. I know I should let her go, but all I can think is how I’m close enough to kiss her. And how even though I’ve never touched her before, it feels right.
Delilah’s still got her eyes locked on mine. She leans toward me, just a tiny bit, but I could swear she feels it, too. “I can’t,” she says, but doesn’t move away.
She bites down on her bottom lip and that settles it—if she won’t come with me, I’m just gonna lie down and die.
“Please.” I’m so desperate, my voice is practically a whisper. “Something ain’t right about this town, Delilah. Even if you don’t believe me about last night, I know you believe that.”
My breath is coming up short, like I’ve been running. Delilah presses her hand to my chest and suddenly our heads are a whole lot closer together. And then I know, sure as the sun comes up every morning, I’m gonna kiss her and she’s gonna kiss me back.