The Program Page 0,30
made my life worth living?”
“Is this just about James? Honey, I’m sure when he comes back—”
I throw my fork across the room, banging it off the wall. “It’s not just James! They’ll take out parts of me. Parts of Brady. I won’t even know my friends. I won’t remember why I love going to the river. . . . It’s because that’s where James first kissed me. Did you know that? That’s where he first told me he loved me. And now they’ll take that from him and he won’t remember. He won’t even know who he is.”
“If it’s meant to be, you’ll find each other again.”
I scoff. “I hate you,” I say, tears streaming from my eyes.
I told my mother that once before, after my brother died. She threatened to send me to The Program and I never said it again. Now I stare at her, all my emotions spinning into a dark spiral.
“Actually, I take it back,” I say to her, smiling sadly. “I hate myself more.” And then I run for my mother’s car in the garage, needing to get away. From her. And from everything.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I DRIVE THROUGH THE COUNTRY, THE LONG ROUTE that James and I used to take. I don’t turn on the radio; I don’t turn down the blasting heater. Instead I let sweat race down my back. It’s suffocating and thick in here, but I don’t care. I slow down when I get to the stretch of farm where there is nothing but cows. Them and me.
When I’m on the side of the road, I put the car in park and stare down at my hand. At the purple ring that James gave me. It doesn’t take long for me to dissolve into tears, screaming until my voice breaks completely. I’m practically hyperventilating when the thought hits me. When the clarity of it is too much to resist. It’s like a sudden calm, erasing my pain. It’s peacefulness. I wipe absently at my face and sit up straighter, shifting the car into gear.
I know what to do. What James would have done if I’d let him. There’s no way I can hide my despair. They’ll come for me soon enough, if they’re not planning to already. They’ll take me away, mess with my mind, clear away my memories of James, Miller, and possibly even Brady. They’ll take away everything that makes me me, and send me back clean. Empty.
I almost smile as I swing onto the road, driving too fast. Not caring if I crash. Almost hoping I do. But if I don’t, it’ll be okay.
Because I’m going to the river. I’m going for a swim.
• • •
I don’t go to our usual spot. I go to where my brother died, and stand on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the rushing river water. It’s barely after five, the sun’s high above me, and I’m still in my perfectly normal clothes. In a way, I wish I’d worn something that meant more to me, like one of James’s old sweaters, or Brady’s T-shirts that we never got rid of.
I lift up my hand and look again at the purple heart ring. It seems like a lifetime ago that he gave it to me, and I realize it was. It was Miller’s lifetime ago. I start to cry.
Bringing the ring to my lips, I kiss it, thinking of where James could be. We know nothing of The Program, what it really does to people. On the news a few months back, they did an investigative report, but the story was overshadowed by the rising number of deaths. Any small violations they found—overuse of pills, patients being tied down—were pushed aside and the focus was on the results. No one in The Program died. They all went on to graduate, turn eighteen, disappear off the government radar.
I lower my arm and watch the strong current below me. The drop is nearly twenty feet. The river is deep enough here that I won’t smack the bottom, but I will get pulled under. I will be swept away, just like Brady was that day. And like him, I won’t fight it. I’ll let the darkness take me.
Closing my eyes I silently apologize to my parents, to everyone I’ve let down. And then . . . I fall forward.
The wind rushes over my face and the feeling of dropping flutters my stomach and makes me gasp in a breath just as I hit the water.