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me causes as his other hand clamps over my mouth, steal-

ing my air.

I manage to open my mouth underneath his hold and

bite down hard on his palm, shaking my head back and

forth like a dog. The fl esh between my teeth tears and he

shouts, yanking his hand away as blood arcs from it.

“Stupid
bitch
!” He reaches forward with both hands,

curls his fi ngers around my throat, and he squeezes.

Kneeling on my stomach, he’s pressing whatever air’s

left out of my lungs as he cuts off the rest at my throat.

Gasping for air where there is none, I try to twist out of his

grip, but he’s too heavy, and I’m still yanking uselessly at

his arms as things go gray around the edges.

My lungs burn as I start to drift, my hands fall away, and

the world fades.

The police are here. It’s over. I can be done now. And

maybe . . . just maybe she was right all along about the

heaven thing.

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Bang.

Coach jerks, and as he slumps to the side and falls off

of me, I suck in air in huge gulps, choking on it. Suddenly,

the darkness of the forest is obliterated—everything’s too

bright, like someone’s just turned on a spotlight. I blink

dazedly up at the sky. There’s a whooshing sound above my

head. I feel a sudden breeze on my face and see the pines

bending and swaying from the chopper hovering above us.

“Sophie!” Someone’s grabbing me, dragging me across

the dirt. I bat at the hands on my wrists, trying to fi ght

again. “Sophie! It’s okay! You’re okay!”

“Where’s Adam?” I croak. “He has a gun.”

“It’s okay,” the guy says again. I’m having trouble focus-

ing on the blurry person in front of me, I’m shaking so

badly. “We got him. It’s okay,” he repeats, and then turns

his head and yells out, “Can I get some EMTs down here?!”

“Where’s Coach?” I mumble. My throat hurts, like some-

one’s dragged a razor through it. Everything hurts. I push

at the cop who’s holding on to me, trying to sit up. There’s a

branch digging into my back. “Is he dead?”

“Sophie, you need to stay still. Wilson!” He spots some-

body in the distance and calls him over. When the blurry

fi gure trots up, he barks, “Where are my EMTs?”

My eyes drift shut. It feels so good to close them.

“No, no, Sophie, stay awake.” Fingers dig painfully into

my jaw, yanking my head up. I struggle to open my eyes,

blinking, fi nally focusing on the face in front of me.

It’s Detective James. He looks scared. It’s weird—cops

shouldn’t look scared.

“S’you,” I say. “Told you . . . told you I was clean.”

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317

“Yeah, you did,” he says. “Stay awake, okay? Keep talk-

ing to me.”

“Don’t let them give me anything,” I tell him, my eyes

shutting again.

“Sophie! Stay awake!”

But I can’t. It’s too hard. “No drugs,” I say. It’s important.

I don’t want them. Not like last time. “Don’t let them. . . .”

I fall into blackness between one breath and the other,

and nothing is painful and everything is fi ne and I can feel

her, somewhere, somehow . . . and it doesn’t hurt. It just

feels right.

Waking up in the hospital is familiar. The beeping of the

machines, the scratch of the sheets, the smell of antiseptic

and death.

“Mina,” I murmur, still half-caught in a dream. My

hand’s being held, carefully, reverently. I know it’s not her,

but for a moment I keep my eyes closed and pretend.

“Hey, you with me?”

I turn my head to the side. Trev’s sitting there. “Hey.”

I swallow, and then immediately regret it. My throat’s on

fi re; it makes me splutter for air. Trev helps me sit up, rub-

bing my back.

“So I guess you got my text,” I say when I can breathe

again. My voice is barely a husk of sound.

“I did,” he says. “Jesus, Soph, you scared the crap out

of me.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. I lean my head against his shoulder.

His T-shirt feels ridiculously soft against my bruised skin.

“I’m really glad you got it, though.”

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He chokes out of laugh, squeezing my hand. “Yeah, me

too.”

“You okay?” I ask.

He looks at me, then down at my hand that he’s holding.

“No,” he says. “I’m not okay.”

I want to pull back the blankets to let him crawl into bed

with me, but I don’t. He’ll keep it together, because that’s

who he is. That’s what he always does. But we take a min-

ute, just one, of silence, where I hold his hand and hope that

it’s all right, that it helps in some small way, because both of

us have to be strong for her just a little longer.

“Where are my parents?” I ask fi nally, when his grip on

my hand loosens. I pull back from him, leaning against the

pillows.

“They’re talking to the doctors. I snuck in.”

“How long has it been?”

“Day and a half. You should go back to sleep. Everything

else can wait until tomorrow.”

I can’t rest or wait, even though every muscle in my

body aches and my head is killing me.

Trev’s thumb rubs my fi ngers gently.

“They won’t let them out on bail, right?” I blurt out. It’s

silly, but last time I woke up in the hospital, I woke up to

people not believing a word I said. I can’t help but be scared

of that happening all over again. “Detective James shot

Coach—is he still alive?”

“Got him in the shoulder. He’ll live to be charged.

Adam’s already confessed,” Trev says, his jaw rigid. “He

cracked the second they started questioning him. You were

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319

right: he killed Mina and planted the drugs so everyone

would think it was your fault. Coach Rob says he didn’t

know Adam was doing any of it. He’s lawyered up. Won’t

say a thing about Jackie. But it doesn’t matter. There are

enough charges to lay on him . . . on both of them. They’re

gonna be in prison for a long time.” The satisfaction in his

voice is so thick, I can almost taste it.

“Adam saw her,” I say. “When he was fourteen. He saw

Jackie get into Coach’struck that day. And he never told

anyone. Oh, God—Kyle.” I look up at Trev. “Adam is—

was—his best friend. How is he?”

Trev shakes his head. “Kyle’s in shock. The whole town’s

in shock. I think every girl who ever played soccer is get-

ting grilled by her parents about Coach and if he messed

with any of them. He’s lucky he’s in custody; he wouldn’t

last a day loose in town.”

I shudder, wondering if there are any more girls Coach

had “loved.” Ones who were lucky enough not to get

pregnant.

“My mom keeps asking me how this could be,” Trev

says. “How no one could know what was going on between

him and Jackie, and I don’t know what to tell her.” He looks

up at me with so much pain in his eyes, I need to look away.

“He sent us a fucking fruit basket after Mina died, Sophie. I

remember writing the thank-you note for it, signing Mom’s

name.”

I swallow, hoping I’ll feel less sick. All it does is make

my throat hurt more.

“Bastard,” I say. I see the same rage simmering back at

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F A R F R O M Y O U

me in Trev’s eyes. But the word doesn’t begin to encompass

what we feel toward them. I’m not sure I want to examine

it too closely, how clear everything was in those moments

when the zip tie had gouged into Adam’s neck, cutting off

his breath.

Prison is enough. They can both rot there.

I have to repeat it to myself, like it’ll convince me that

it’s a fair trade.

It’s not.

It never will be.

But we have to live with the loss. Shape our lives

around it.

Trev’s hand tightens around mine, and I squeeze back,

trying to be reassuring. But there isn’t enough reassurance

in the world for the two of us. There’s no more hiding. Mina

is gone, and it’s just him and me, who we are and what we

did and what lies ahead.

That’s the most terrifying thought of all.

“And Matt?” I ask. I feel horrible for confronting him at

the church the way I did. If it were me, fi nding out I came

from a family of killers, that they took the love of my life

away, I’d be halfway to an OD by now.

“I tried calling. The phone’s disconnected. They probably

unplugged it because of the reporters, probably. They did

the same thing about Mina—” He stops, because there’s a

top on my hospital room door and then my mom comes in.

“Sweetheart,” she says when she sees I’m awake. Trev

lets go of my hand and gets up. “No, it’s all right, Trev,” she

says. “You can stay if you’d like.”

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321

“It’s okay, I’ve gotta tell Rachel and Kyle that Sophie’s

awake,” he says. “Check in with my mom. I’ll be back later.”

My mom sits on the bed next to me, watching me with

red eyes. “I’m so glad you’re awake. Your Dad ran home for

a few minutes,” she says. “He said you’d want your yoga

pants when you woke up. How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Hurt.”

“I didn’t let them give you any opiates,” she says. “I’m

sorry, honey, I wish I could—”

“No,” I interrupt. “Thank you. I don’t want any of that

stuff.”

She holds my hand between both of hers. “I wish I could

make you hurt less,” she says.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’m fi ne. I’ll be fi ne. It’s over now.”

I need to hear that out loud. I need it to sink in, but it

hasn’t yet.In a little while the nurse shoos my mom out

and turns the lights off, ordering me to rest. I’ve got three

broken ribs, a bruised throat, and enough stitches holding

my stomach and face together to feel like Frankenstein’s

monster; fortunately, most of the injuries are superfi cial.

But even those hurt like hell when you can’t have anything

stronger than an aspirin.

I don’t sleep yet. It hurts too much and I’m afraid of what

I’m going to dream about. Afraid that the second I close my

eyes, I’ll be back in Adam’s car, back in Coach’s grip, back

at Booker’s Point.

I can’t stop pressing my fi ngers against the raw skin of

my wrists where the zip tie had dug in.

All I can think about is Mina and how I wish I were like

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her, because then I could believe she was looking down at

me right now, happy that we’d fi gured it out, brought her

and Jackie some justice.

But I can’t believe that. All I can do is feel what I feel: a

vague sense of relief, dulled by shock and the spacey haze

that’s stolen over me.

Now it’s only me keeping the monsters at bay: I have

no mission, no crusade, nothing else. Mina’s memory will

sustain me for only so long. It scares me, how easy it could

be to fall back down that hole I’d worked so hard to climb

out of.

Ten months. One week.

I want Aunt Macy. I grab the cell phone my parents left

for me and punch in her number with shaking hands.

“I’m on my way right now,” she says when she picks up.

“I’ll be there in a few hours.”

I let out a shuddery breath. “It’s over,” I say into the

phone.

“Yes it is. Remind me to kick your ass later for putting

yourself in so much danger,” Macy says, the relief in her

voice robbing the threat of all of its power. “This almost-

dying thing is getting to be a habit with you. Not good.”

“I guess I just take after you,” I say.

Macy laughs shakily. “Hell, I hope not.”

I’m quiet for a long time, listening to the buzz of Macy’s

radio, the occasional honk of an eighteen-wheeler as it

passes her car. She’s on the highway, driving to me. Just the

sound of it soothes me in a way nothing else could.

“I’m scared,” I say, breaking my silence.

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323

“I know you are,” she says, her voice ringing out over

the traffi c noise. “But you’re brave, babe. You’re strong.”

“I want . . .” I stop. “I really want to shut down right

now,” I confess. It’s sharp in my gut, that need to numb

myself, to bury every worry about the future, avoid all the

hard choices I have to make.

“They didn’t give you anything, did they?”

“No,” I say. “Mom wouldn’t let them. I don’t want any.”

“That’s smart.”

We’re quiet again, and eventually I fall asleep, the phone

cradled against my ear.

Around two in the morning, the click of the door closing

wakes me. I sit up, expecting the nurse, but it’s Kyle.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“Charmed the nurse into letting me in.” Kyle sits down

at the foot of the bed, dropping a handful of candy on my

lap. “I raided the vending machine.”

He looks as bad as I feel. His eyes are all puffy and red,

and he’s careful not to meet my eyes as he pushes a pack of

licorice toward me.

I sit up, tearing the bag open and popping a piece in my

mouth. “I don’t know what to say,” I tell him.

Kyle makes a sound in the back of his throat, an almost