On the first day of spring break, I walked out of the hospital and Ellie was there, standing by my car. We hadn’t spoken since the day she’d staggered away from me in my backyard.
“So where exactly has Amelia traveled? Where’s the farthest she’s ever been?” Ellie asked.
I set my backpack in the car and turned to face her. “Besides California? Nowhere.”
“Don’t you think it’s time she went someplace? Got a real voyage under her belt?”
“I didn’t name her after Amelia Earhart,” I said bluntly, shoving my hands in my pockets. “I named her after Amelia Pond. She’s a character on Doctor Who. I didn’t want you to know, so I pretended it was something else. I didn’t want you to think I was a sci-fi nerd who watched too much TV.”
Ellie looked down, shoulders sagging, regret etched across her face. “I hate that I came across so judgmental, that you felt you couldn’t tell me things.”
“I wish I had been real with you,” I said.
We sat with this information a while, rolling it around in our heads and knocking it away like we were working triggers on a pinball machine. The outcome was always the same, though; the thought always came back, always fell down the slot:
GAME OVER
I’d never believed Ellie could be with me long-term, so in the end, I made it true. I’d been wrong about Ryder, so I needed to be right about her. Pushing her away was the only way I got to be right.
It still hurt to think about Ryder. Although he was unidentifiable in the key chain photos, after the images ran in the Palm Valley High Recorder, he dropped out of school. I heard he was lying low for a while at the Mobile Estates by himself while his mom finished rehab. I liked to think he spent his days playing MLB on Griffin’s Xbox.
Strangely enough, I never pictured him in the chem lab, arranging bundles of drugs for distribution. I still associated him with Little League, but in my mind’s eye I didn’t watch him throw the bat anymore. I watched everyone else.
I watched the people in the stands, waiting for Ryder to run around the bases, waiting for a moment that was never going to happen. Nobody thought to look at the baseball he’d hit, soaring up through the sky, leaving all of us behind. Nobody thought to see how far it went, or whether it would ever come down. Someone should’ve looked.
I should’ve looked.
With Ryder out of the way, I’d been an undisputed soccer star. For a while, anyway. So I didn’t look too closely at the situation; I didn’t try too hard to find out why he’d failed his drug test, I just accepted it as his choice and my good fortune.
And when he came to me about making extra cash by leaving the history window unlocked, I didn’t look too closely then, either. I should’ve opened my eyes—not so I could avoid the pitfalls of being Ryder’s friend, but so I could’ve helped him. Instead, I gathered all my suspicions together and put them on Ellie. I chose the wrong person to watch, and then I didn’t see either of them for who they really were.
“Where did Amelia Pond travel?” Ellie asked.
“Well, they have a time machine called a TARDIS, so pretty much anywhere in space and time.”
“Did she ever go to New Mexico?”
“You know, I think she went to the desert once, but never New Mexico.” We leaned against my car for a moment, watching the other cars in the parking lot come and go.
“Blue-razz?” Ellie asked, holding out a lollipop. I declined.
“Do you remember what you said about my arm being like a safety bar on a roller coaster?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I think it was holding you back, it was keeping you from escaping. And I’m sorry about that,” I said.
She swallowed. “I didn’t want to escape. It was my fault, too. For what happened. I gave you a lot of mixed signals because I didn’t know what I wanted. But it wasn’t because I didn’t care about you. You were the only guy I wanted to be with.”
“If it helps, knowing what I wanted didn’t help me. It didn’t make things any easier. It just made me scared all the time of losing what I had, of being forced to live a reality-based life.” I looked away for a moment, then met her eyes again. She gazed back without reservation.
“Will you and Amelia drive me to New Mexico? Show me your old stomping grounds and help me check out a college there? We can stop anyplace you’re interested, too, on the way, or back.”
I looked over at her in surprise. The sun was behind her, framing her face in a kind of harsh halo. In California the last thing you need is more sunshine. Things die from too much sun just as surely as they die without it. A cloud was what I wanted. A cloud was what I needed. A downpour. New Mexico had those sometimes in the spring when the snow melted, and I was overdue.
We drove to my house so I could ask my parents.
I didn’t let myself dwell on the what-ifs. I didn’t ask myself what it meant, whether Ellie and I could be friends or whether we’d even see each other again after this road trip. Because it didn’t matter. I didn’t think we’d get back together, but for the next few days, I could finally introduce her to the real me.
I didn’t wonder how she’d react to things I did or said, I didn’t second-guess my every breath, I just breathed.
When we exited onto the 14 Freeway, headed out of Palm Valley, I took stock of my senses: the sound of the other cars around us, the heavy breeze on my arm as I dangled it out the window.
The light was so bright it burned my eyes, but I didn’t look away. That was the price of keeping them open.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO MY AGENT, SARA MEGIBOW, FOR SUPPORTING me both professionally and personally. Your enthusiasm, kindness, and publishing knowledge are cherished.
Big thanks to the talented Maggie Lehrman, who helped me get this story just right. I can’t fathom a better editor for High and Dry. You rock!
Thank you to everyone at the Nelson Lit Agency for their hard work: Kristin Nelson, Anita Mumm, Angie Hodapp, Becky Taylor, and Lori Bennett.
Amulet Books is a tremendous place to be published. I’m proud and grateful to be part of the team. Thanks to Susan Van Metre, Laura Mihalick, Erica La Sala, Jason Wells, Maria T. Middleton, and Jim Armstrong. ALA Midwinter in January 2013 was a highlight for me. Next up: Vegas!
Thanks to the Hoovers, Skiltons, and Murphys for your love and encouragement.
Big thanks to my critique partners and fellow writers Sarvenaz Tash, Amy Spalding, Kristen Kittscher, and Miranda Kenneally. Thanks to the generous Hope Larson for hosting Writing Nights, where all of my brainstorming and much of my writing got done during a chaotic year.
Thanks to Stephanie Sagheb for Movie Nights! Also, Robyn Sommerfield, Lisa Gail Green, Julie Musil, Leslie Rose, Cat Winters, Elisabeth Dahl, Den Shewman, Juleen Woods, Stan Zalesny, and Shona and Miya have been wonderfully supportive and I’m very happy to know you all.
At Breakdown Services, Gary, Kathleen, Richard, Kathy, Lynne, and Irene have supported my efforts all the way and kept me laughing during very busy days. Thank you!
Thanks to the fabulous YA and children’s mystery writers at Sleuths, Spies and Alibis, as well as the Lucky 13s debut author group.
The works of Rob Thomas, Rian Johnson, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Mercedes Lambert, and Dorothy B. Hughes helped inspire this book.
Lastly, thank you to Joe for sharing your thoughts on my boy narrator and other aspects of writing. You’re the best husband, partner, and father to our son I could wish for.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH SKILTON is the author of Bruised, which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and which The Horn Book called “nuanced and honest.” She lives with her magician husband and their son in Los Angeles, California.
This book was designed by Jessie Gang and art directed by Maria T. Middleton.
Its production was overseen by Elizabeth Peskin.
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