As it turns out, a lot of geniuses were insomniacs. Groucho Marx, Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Edison—I’m in good company.
It’s something about smart people, I think, being unable to turn their minds off.
Never mind that it’s become a more serious problem recently, since Alex’s disappearance. Never mind that I know every single little divot and crack in my ceiling, and how if I think too much about everything it all drives me a little bit crazy. Maybe I should take a Benadryl. The pharmacist told my mother to take Benadryl on any overseas flights instead of sleep aids.
My phone pings.
I roll over to answer it, pulling my already tangled sheets with me.
A new e-mail from Alex.
My heart almost explodes into a million pieces. He’s alive. Alex Belrose is alive.
Unless it’s someone else using his e-mail.
I click into the account, and there it is, plain as day: an e-mail from him to me. I can feel it. It’s really him.
Meet me at the cliffs near Porter Lane at midnight.
He wants to see me. He wants to see me at the cliffs near Porter Lane.
Of course. It makes perfect sense. Everyone knows the cliffs near Porter Lane. Three years ago, it’s where Paul Billson, the local mortician, got drunk and ran off the road. He almost ran straight off those very cliffs, but the fencing along the side saved him. The next morning, the police found him asleep in his car, one wheel dangling over the edge of the cliffs, about to plunge three hundred feet down into a river.
The fencing, damaged from Billson’s accident, was removed and not replaced. The locals, spooked by the story, avoid the place completely.
Which is probably why Alex wants me to meet him there.
I check the time.
It’s 11:46. I have to hurry.
Quickly, I pull on a hoodie, a pair of jeans, and sneakers, then slide open my window. I climb over the sill and push off, jumping clean of my mother’s flowers that grow along the sides of the house, then I slip back between the flowers to quietly pull my window down. If I leave it open, the heat will kick on more often than normal, which might wake my parents.
I put my car in reverse and roll it out of the driveway without starting it, and then, once I’m in the street, I turn the key and pull away.
No lights go on in the rearview mirror.
I let out my breath, which fogs up the windshield. The night air is frigid. It’s a bitter cold that settles deep into the bones of the earth on still nights, nights when birds and other animals tuck themselves away into nests and holes. The wind isn’t blowing, not even a breeze, and the silence, even more than the temperature, makes me shiver.
I turn the heat on high and click on the radio, but for a moment, there is only static, and then a tinny old blues station comes in, like my car can’t receive anything else. Then it clears up and the pop station comes through, blasting Taylor Swift too loud.
I turn it down, my skin prickling oddly.
Something is wrong. Something feels wrong.
But of course it does. It’s the middle of the night and I’ve just snuck out of the house to meet my missing (and possibly presumed dead) teacher.
I reach the edge of town and turn onto the web of dirt roads that will lead me to Porter Lane. I hear the gravel crunch under my wheels even with the music on, hear it hit the undercarriage of my car as I draw closer.
I’m going to see Alex.
I’m finally going to see him.
The blood in my veins turns hot.
I turn onto Porter Lane, and my headlights fall upon someone: a tall figure, standing alone on the corner, in the tall weeds that the frost has been too stubborn to completely kill.
Alex.
I hit my brakes hard, my car jerking to a stop, and there he is, after so long, he’s just there, looking like he’s always looked, not hurt or lost or anything. I leap out of my car, leaving it running, the headlights on, and then I stop short, just standing in front of him, looking up at him, and it’s him and he’s there and it’s just us after so long and he’s okay.
“Alex,” I whisper. His name, after so many days of uncertainty, feels good in my mouth. He gathers me up in his arms and kisses me, hard and long, my body against his, and it feels so, so good, like all the worry and pain from the past two weeks are just falling away, like they were never there in the first place, and I’m actually happy, just happy. He’s okay. Alex is okay. I’m okay. He’s back. Jacqueline didn’t kill him.
“What happened?” I ask in his ear, and I realize I’m shaking. My body feels strange and tight and sore.
He pulls away, and the moonlight casts his soft features into strange, sharp places and valleys that I never saw before. “We’re going to be together,” he whispers, his voice a deep, long scratch. “We’re finally going to get to be together.”
My pulse quickens. “How, Alex? How is it going to be okay?”
“Do you trust me?” he asks.
No. The answer is in my heart, automatic and unbidden, but I squeeze his hand, and then he’s kissing me again, and oh my God I have missed him and for just a second I feel like my life is back together but nothing is together and this isn’t right.
I pull back for a moment, my head down but my hands still on his arms and his on my waist.
“Run away with me,” he pleads. “Come on. Let’s run away from here. We can start over and be together. And when you turn eighteen, we can get married. We can have a family. We can forget this whole stupid town and all of these horrible people and it can be just us, forever.”
I stare at him. Is this what Alex thinks I want? Babies and a family? To miss out on everything I worked so hard for? To just give everything up for him? What was the point of all the secrecy if I was so ready to throw everything away? Doesn’t he realize I want to go to college? To reap the rewards I’ve earned for myself? That I deserve?
Doesn’t he know me at all?
I step back, away from him.
I stare at the man standing in front of me, holding his hands out, pleading.
“Alex, I can’t. I’ve worked too hard for everything here. I can’t just walk out on all of my responsibilities.”
“I worked for my life, and look where I am—with a wife who cheats on me and leaves me for extended periods of time? With someone who loves her stupid wine club more than she loves me? In a job that doesn’t pay me enough to cover my house and car payments? I can’t live like this anymore, Riley. Please. Come with me. I’m begging you. I love you. God, I love you.”
“I love you too, Alex. But no.”
But then he’s pulling me. Pulling me away from my car that’s still idling, the door open and the headlights on. “Just let me show you something,” he whispers. “Let me show you how it will all be better for us. Let me show you how I keep my promises.”
“Can I turn my car off?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It won’t take long. I swear. And then we can leave here.”
I cast a look back at my car, but I follow him, away from the light of the car, where there’s only moonlight.
“Where are you taking me?” I ask.
“You’ll understand when you see,” he promises me, walking faster. He takes my hand and pulls me after him, and the cold is seeping through my jeans and into my bones. What is he doing? Where has he been all this time? Is he insane?
He’s smiling. He’s smiling so big, like there’s something I’m missing, and I’ve been missing it this whole time and he’s waiting to draw back the curtain and show me, but it’s all off, and I shouldn’t be here and I know it. But I don’t want to leave him. Not when I’ve finally found him.
“What’s going on, Alex?” I try to sound calm. I’m excited he’s okay. I am. But I have a feeling that’s like a vibration in my chest, and it’s crawling up to the back of my neck. I feel like I’m watching a horror movie, and I want to scream at the girl on the screen to stop, to turn away, to just, for the love of God, not look around the corner.
But I don’t.
He touches my shoulder. “I have a surprise for you, Riley,” he says. “That’s where I’ve been, you know.”
“Where?” My voice is casual. This is just like any other conversation we’ve ever had, of course. Like we’re talking about lasagna or cookies or poetry or how I won’t give myself to him.
I feel mad inside, like there’s something inside of me screaming.
“I’ve been planning.”
“Planning?” My voice has a funny pitch to it.
“Just wait.”
He speeds up, and I match his steps. The ground beneath our feet is hard and dry, and the cold air is full of dust. The earth has been begging for moisture, but it hasn’t rained in weeks—just drizzled pitifully for a few minutes one day last week before giving up.
“There,” Alex says.
And at first, I don’t see anything. But then a shape emerges in the darkness, large and hulking, the moonlight glinting off the glass of the windows. It’s a car, black, with rust around the wheel wells—and as we get closer, I see that it’s moving. Just slightly.
Rocking in the darkness, at the very edge of the cliffs.
Alex turns to me and grins. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small Maglite. He clicks it on before handing it to me.
“I told you it would be worth it.”
“What?” I ask.
But I’m scared of the answer.
“Come on,” Alex says, and we walk toward the car together. I look back at my car, which is still waiting, the headlights two beacons in the night, the door ajar.
And at the black car. It’s still moving, ever so slightly, in the darkness.
As I get closer, I realize why.
There are people in it.
People rocking back and forth.
But—why?
“Alex—”
He holds up a finger. “Wait,” he says.
We reach the car, and he opens the door grandly. It creaks, loudly, and the familiar chemical scent of gasoline reaches my nose.
Alex takes the Maglite from me and shines it inside, and there they are, blinking against the bright light and struggling against thick knots of blond rope:
Jacqueline Belrose and Rob Samuels.
Jacqueline sits in the passenger seat. Her ropes have been knotted through the steering wheel. She’s been gagged and a bloody purple bruise maps across her forehead, and she’s making small noises behind her gag. Noises like she’s trying to scream.
Rob is looking at me, throwing his head back and forth like a wild animal, his eyes wide and lolling. He’s already in some sort of pain. Alex has hurt him badly, and I can’t tell how. I can’t see bruises or blood, but something’s wrong. Something’s really wrong.
I have to get them both out of here.
Jacqueline, perhaps, wasn’t the crazy one. Maybe it was Alex all along.
He couldn’t just be patient. He couldn’t just do all of this the right way. He had to go psycho and put everyone in the car at the edge of a ravine.
I feel strange and ill. But I can’t throw up. I can’t. I have to be calm.
“What? Alex, what is this? What are you doing?”
“You wanted me to get a divorce, didn’t you? So we could be together?” He laughs. “You know Jacqueline would never leave me alone. She would have bled me dry just for her designer clothes and her stupid wine. But if she’s dead, she won’t be able to.” He laughs again, and it’s short and mad.
“And you don’t think blowing her up in a car is a little suspicious?” I ask faintly. “That doesn’t look like murder at all, does it?”
“I’ll be gone. They already think I’m dead, don’t they?”
“And what did Rob do to you?” I ask. Given, he’s not exactly my favorite person, and yeah, he’s been really touchy and awful in ways I haven’t appreciated lately, but blowing him up in a car?
Alex’s face darkens. He looks strange and unfamiliar. “I saw you two together.”
And that’s enough.
“It wasn’t really anything. I was just trying to make sure no one knew anything, you know? About us? Please, Alex. This is a little rash, don’t you think?”
I pause and grab on to the sleeve of his jacket. “You don’t need to kill them, Alex.”
Alex blinks at me, his eyes closing. “I know I don’t.” He reaches into his pocket and tosses me a book of matches. “We do. Together.”
I take the matches and pull one off. “So you want me to help you kill them? Is that it?”
He nods, his green eyes looking almost black in the deep of the night. “That’s it. This is what binds us together. Not our blood.” He touches his heart. “Theirs.”
I turn the matches in my fingers, trying not to look at the way Rob is still thrashing in the car, at the way Jacqueline has her head strained toward me, her bulging eyes screaming all the things she can’t. I think of all the times I wished Jacqueline dead. I think of all the times I actually started planning it.
And here it is, laid out before me, in one very messy car.
My hands start to shake from fear and pain and cold.
He’s insane. Alex Belrose, my first and only love, is absolutely insane. There’s no way around it.
“I’ll get rid of Jacqueline forever if we can get rid of Rob, too,” Alex pleads. He still has that smile on his mouth, and it’s twitching and odd. Something about him has gone off.
And I’m in way too deep.
“About that . . . ,” I say.
And I throw the matches off the edge of the cliff, into the water below.
“You’re insane!” I say. “And I have the pictures on my phone to prove it. And I’ll tell everyone you tried to fail me just so you could bring my parents in to threaten me. If you kill them, I’ll show everyone just how goddamned nuts you are, Alex Belrose. You let them go and you don’t come near me or them again.”
He crosses his arms, and the flashlight lights up his face from below his chin. “P-pictures? What are you talking about? I didn’t ask your parents to come in, either. And I don’t know why you’re attacking me like this.” Very slowly, he starts unbuttoning his shirt, revealing a thin red line about his heart. “I can’t lie to you, Riley. We’re blood-bonded, remember? And they can test for that sort of thing now. They’ll bring us in to the police station together, and they’ll be able to tell we’re part of each other, won’t they?”
I’m breathing hard, and my heart is in my throat and my stomach and my head and everywhere all at once. I pull my phone out of my jacket and open the folder. “You snuck into my bedroom,” I say, and my hand trembles.
He is quiet for a moment as he takes the phone, and he looks through the photos one by one.
I sneer at him. “You’ve gotten so good at lying you don’t even realize when you do it to yourself. Do you remember now?”
He screams, then, and it’s primal and animalistic, and he throws the phone down and starts toward the car.
“You did it!” he screams at Rob. “You were stalking her! She’s mine! And you were after her, all this time! Fuck you!”
And before I can move or scream or stop him, he pulls another book of matches out of his pocket.
He lights them all at once, across the rusty side of the car.
And then he throws them in the door and slams it shut.
I grab my phone off the ground and run away as fast as I can.
I turn back, grabbing my ears, and the car is in flames, and Alex is just standing there, watching it, watching them burn, watching them die, and then it happens.
A giant orange fireball, bright as the sun, like a thousand guns going off at once, and I cover my ears and hit the ground.
But it doesn’t stop me from seeing.
Alex, getting blown back by the force of the blast.
Toward the cliff.
Over the edge.
And gone.
Alex Belrose, presumed dead.