AMELIA

The deer crashed away into the brush as the engine tick-tick-ticked and then slowed, and died. Terrified into silence, they both watched the bobbing white of her tail as it vanished through a cut between the bushes and into the dark.

When Amelia spoke, her voice was cold and thick with fury.

“What the hell is the matter with you?”

Luke, his bravado cracked, answered her in a tiny, terrified squeak that would have been funny if not for the still-too-close memory of his baseless accusations, the suggestion that she’d slept her way to the top.

“Hang on,” he whispered.

He turned the key in the ignition. There was a cough, and then, incredibly, the purr of the motor.

“Okay,” he muttered. “Okay.”

“Okay?” she snapped, exasperated. “We’re in a freaking cornfield.”

Ahead of them, a long dirt track wound away through the tall green architecture of the cornstalks, many still heavy with green-husked ears that grew out at angles, a soft tuft of silk waving at the end like a tiny flag. In the dark, they looked like skeletons, clustered together uncertainly and whispering over the alien machine that had appeared at the edge of their field. When the breeze blew lightly down the rows, they brushed against each other with a sound like paper.

It gave her the creeps.

Luke ignored her, throwing the car into reverse and backing away.

Amazing, she thought, realizing how close they had come to ruining somebody’s crop.

Instead, he had veered right onto the dirt path and clipped only two stalks, which lay like fallen soldiers among their still-standing brethren. She watched the line recede—they waved in the wind, good-bye—and then they were on the side of the road.

Luke put the car in park and turned to her.

“Look,” he said. For a moment, she thought with relief that he might apologize. Her stomach tied itself into a tight knot when she saw that the cold, cruel look had come back into his face.

“I don’t—” she began, and he held up a finger. Shh.

“Just tell me the truth,” he said. “You fucked him, right?”

Shocked, she could only stare.

“C’mon,” he said, his voice louder. “Just tell me the truth. You fucked him.”

Recovering, she leveled her gaze at him and did not blink. In a voice dripping with contempt, she said, “You know I didn’t.”

He scoffed, and she raised her voice. “You’re pathetic, you know that? It didn’t have to be like this! All you had to do was bend the tiniest bit, just give up your precious, precious plan—”

“Oh, that’s rich,” he snapped. “My plan was fine, until that asshole made you think I wasn’t good enough—but you had to be special, right? You had to be a star. How many other girls do you think he’s told that to, just to get in their pants?”

Her mouth dropped open. He’d scored a point there, he thought, and began to shout at her.

“Why don’t you just admit that you did it, huh? You fucked him! C’mon, Ame, why not admit it? Why the big secret?!”

She was quiet for a minute, her lips still parted and the look of disbelief still painted on her face. She began to shake her head, slowly, then crossed her arms and sighed, turning away, refusing to look at him.

“I’m not doing this with you anymore, Luke,” she said, quietly. “You won’t believe me anyway.”

He sat back, mimicking her, crossing his arms and allowing his smile to become smug.

“Yeah, I knew it. I’ve got you pegged, haven’t I? I knew you couldn’t do it by yourself.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” she snapped.

“All that talk,” he said. “All those things you said, wanting to do it all different. Wanting to talk dirty. Look, I’m just saying, I knew it.”

She stared at him. His eyes were glazed, glassy, blazing with triumph behind his glasses, and as his lip curled in a sneer, she felt it happen.

Her love for him—whatever shred of it was left—was gone. It had slunk away into the night. It would die out there, and she would not be sorry to leave it, at the side of the road, in a no-name town surrounded by nothing but blackness.

Quietly, she said, “Knew what, exactly?”

He licked his lips.

“I knew you’d never turn into such a whore without a little help.”

“Good-bye.”

The word was out, and she was gone. Out of the car in a flash of fabric and tossed blond hair, gone so quickly that he barely had time to react. He flung open his own door and looked wildly around—she had run to the back, was trying to open the trunk, and he rushed at her while the vast night yawned away in all directions. There was only the car, the slap of his feet on the pavement, the slim yellow lines that ran unassumingly along the road and disappeared evenly into the distance. And her.

Her.

She saw him coming and moved away, past the hood and into the twin beams of the headlights, and turned under the dizzying canopy of stars with her mouth wide open and her eyes squeezed down to tiny slits.

“It’s over!” she screamed, and he could only stare. He stumbled, feeling dizzy, feeling drunk with jealousy and rage.

He clutched at the door as she turned away, walking with her head held high. Hot tears appeared at the corners of his eyes and he swiped them away, hating them, hating his impotence in the face of her anger.

It’s over.

He could not make her stop.

Could not keep her.

Could not make her stay.