Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self - By Danielle Evans Page 0,47

had sent me here to advise Liddie. I had no business telling her anything about how to be a student. When I was in college, I’d lived in an off-campus pigsty and spent most of my free time playing video games. I’d been an OK student, but I did more reading working at the bookstore now than I had back then. I picked up a newspaper and pretended to care about things for a while, then I switched to her suitemate’s copy of Entertainment Weekly and stared at Beyoncé instead. Liddie muttered to herself about vertebrate bone structure. After about an hour she slammed the book shut.

“Let’s find him,” she said.

“Who?”

“That guy who wants to be you. Let’s confront our curiosity.”

There were many reasons why this was a bad idea. I wasn’t supposed to take the rental car out of Massachusetts. Even if we left now, it would probably be early tomorrow morning before we arrived in Maryland. When we got there we’d be twenty minutes away from our parents. If we didn’t show up, we’d get caught or feel guilty about not getting caught. If we did, there’d be explanations to give; neither of our parents would believe we’d driven nine hours because we missed them. Our curiosity about Carlos was probably not the best motivation for a trip like this. Right then, though, it seemed so easy not to disappoint my sister, and such opportunities were rare.

“You know it’s not him, right?” I said.

“Of course,” Liddie said. “But I want to know who it is. I mean, who wants our lives?”

I hadn’t unpacked anything, and Liddie hadn’t bothered to pack at all, so it was only an hour later that we found ourselves headed south on the interstate. It was already after midnight, and the roads were emptier than I had expected. People had either done their leaving already or they were waiting until the last possible minute. The weather was clear, and you could even see stars, which felt like a good omen. Liddie fiddled with the radio until she found a jazz station and then continued reading her textbook with a flashlight. We were just outside of Hartford when she finally shut it.

“So, Gabi,” said Liddie.

“She left me.”

“Obviously.”

“I could have left her.”

“No,” Liddie said, not obnoxiously. “No, you couldn’t have.”

“I could have,” I said. “I just wouldn’t have.”

Liddie didn’t respond.

“So,” I said finally. “The elephants. What’s so amazing about them that they need my sister as their shrink?”

“Lots of things. They’re so much like us. Elephant society has been breaking down just like ours has. Increased violence. Pack violence, even. They experience shock. They’ve got elaborate grieving rituals, like humans. I guess that’s why they always seemed sad to me.”

“Always?”

“I used to go to the zoo sometimes in high school. It was calming.” A minute later she said softly, “Let’s go see them. The elephants. Before we look for Carlos, I mean.”

She turned to look at me with very big eyes, and very lightly brushed her hair off her forehead. I knew what she was doing, but it was working anyway.

“Liddie,” I said, “it’s Thanksgiving.”

“The National Zoo is open every day of the year except Christmas.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said.

“We’re in a car going back where you just came from to find a guy who’s improving your credit by using your name illegally because we think somehow he might be a guy we didn’t kill, and he might be as obsessed with us as we are with him, just because he’s got like the second most common name in the world. That’s ridiculous.”

“Hey, that was your idea too,” I said.

“It was your idea first. You just wouldn’t have gone through with it.”

As usual, I caved. Content, Liddie fell asleep for a while. Outside of Maryland I pulled over for a second, and she woke up and took over driving, which was maybe the fourth thing in the car rental contract that I’d violated. It was a little after nine when we pulled into the zoo’s parking lot. I’d been trying for an hour to stay asleep in spite of the sun prying at my eyes. I was surprised the zoo was open that early, but Liddie seemed confident it would be, which was the first thing that convinced me she wasn’t bullshitting me about hanging out here in high school.

We went straight for the elephants, but even they seemed to know that it was a holiday and they didn’t need to be awake yet. There were three