“Why are you so nice to me, then?” she said.

I snorted. “I’m not nice to you.”

“You let me give Bryce that Touch. You risked your life—the lives of your family—for me. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, I did,” I said. “You would have died if I didn’t.”

“I could have found someone else, maybe,” she said. “You felt guilty? Is that what it is?”

“No. Look. You’re as important to me as my family. In my life, I’ve known hundreds—thousands of girls, maybe. I’ve married them, had kids with them, grown old with them, loved them. But you are … I can’t explain it. Every time you even walk away from me, I feel like there’s a hole in my chest. I think I would die if anything happened to you. Literally. The pain would kill me.”

She didn’t say anything for a while, just sat there watching the lights of the bridge dancing on the smooth ripples of the dark bay. Finally, she said, “Wow.”

I wasn’t sure if she meant “Wow, that’s amazing” or “Wow, you freak,” but when she turned to me, there were tears in her eyes. So I inched forward in my swing and kissed her again. She exhaled sweetly, the way girls do, and I put my hand through her hair, wanting more of her, wanting to pull her closer. But it snagged on something, and when I rubbed my thumb to my fingers it was gummy and thick, like she’d used too much hair gel. I pulled my hand out.

“What the …” I looked at my hand. Sniffed. Oh, hell.

“What is that smell?” She stared at my hands. “Is that … peanut butter?”

“Ugh. Kid who sat on this swing before must have been eating peanut butter,” I said, inspecting the chains. I couldn’t tell much in the dark, but now I could smell nothing but peanut butter. It made me want to retch. “Ugh.”

“Calm down, it’s okay,” she said, laughing. She took her shawl off and gently wiped my hands.

“You don’t understand. I hate peanut butter.” I pouted like a kid, but then suddenly

Glass raining down, shadows swirling in the headlights

I straightened. She just kept swabbing at my hands, oblivious to the things rushing through my head. “There. Better?”

I nodded, shaking the thought away. “Yeah. I think we better get back. I need to check on my family.”

We walked back, and I held her hand. With the hand that wasn’t still sticky with peanut butter. Peanut butter. Crap. Why was everything good always mixed with bad? I didn’t want to think about it anymore. I was burned out, thinking of the bad all the time. And in this moment, all I wanted to concentrate on was Taryn. How right she felt. Comfortable. It was chilly, and we were both still damp from the rain, so she leaned in close to me, her hair ticking my chin. I smelled the cinnamon apples. With her hand in mine, my mind calmed and all I could think of was how, if I could pick one moment in my life and freeze it forever, it would be this one. There was all this craziness threatening, but I don’t think I’d ever been happier. I knew it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. But for that second, everything was perfect.

It started to drizzle by the time we reached my block, and when we came to her car, she said, “There’s something else I have to tell you,” just as the skies opened up and it began to pour.

I tugged on her sleeve, trying to get her to go into my house, but she pulled me toward her Jeep. “Are you crazy? I’m not getting in there,” I said.

She laughed. “Don’t be nuts. We’re not going anywhere. I won’t even put the keys in the ignition.” She dangled them in front of me, then dropped them in my hand. “Here, take them.”

I held them in my palm, staring at them like they were diseased. Okay. We wouldn’t leave the driveway. That we could do. Besides, her Jeep was closer, and maybe the thing she had to tell me was something private, that she (and I) didn’t want my family to hear. So I went with her. We piled into the passenger-side door as the clouds threw rain down upon us. But the second I slammed the car door, I had the weirdest and most uncomfortable feeling of déjà vu, like I’d just made the biggest and gravest mistake of my life. Suddenly the back of my neck prickled with the sensation I got whenever something big was coming. The cabin was humid and dark and dark and smelled of peanut butter. Water poured on the roof like a marching army and splashed on the windshield in long clear sheets. The dream catcher dangling from her rearview mirror swayed gently from side to side.

And we were going to die.

But no no no, I thought. In my vision I’m driving. I’m at the steering wheel. I’m—

But I realized too late that the trivial things didn’t matter. That what mattered was the horrible, irreparable end result.

“Taryn,” I said. “This isn’t right. This is—”

“Shhh,” she said, grabbing my hand. “Listen. It’s okay.”

“No, you don’t get it.” I reached for the door handle. But I couldn’t find it.

“Nick, no worries,” she said, holding her arms over the steering wheel as if to say, “Look, Ma, no hands!” but I grabbed the one closest to me and held it. It was so warm and my hand was dead in contrast. I lunged for the lock. I clawed at the door handle, trying to figure out how to get it open. I pulled on the door, pushed buttons, but nothing happened. All I could feel was something tightening around my neck, my pulse thudding in my ears, the stench of peanut butter making it impossible to breathe, and the cabin closing in on itself, on me. Finally she said, “Nick. Just relax, we’re not going anywhere.”

“No. No. NO! Tar, watch ou—” I shouted, but by then it was too late. She was facing me, away from the headlights as they came on us at warp speed. It was a truck, and a big one, judging from the eardrum-bursting squeal of the air brakes. The entire cabin lit up for one brilliant second before the impact. Her face contorted into a terrified mask and her lips curved into an almost smile, yet her body was rigid, all points and right angles as it was propelled toward me. I grabbed hold of her at one of those awkward, wrong places, trying to pull her to me, to protect her, but my hands tangled in locks of her sticky wet hair. There was the shriek of shattering glass and the sting of it spraying on my skin. We began to careen into a mind-scattering tailspin where earth and sky and everything in between seemed like the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle thrown into the air. When everything settled, I knew only one image would be left, the same image I’d already lived a hundred times: holding her blood-soaked head in my lap and screaming, screaming, screaming as the glass rained down upon us.

I guess everything after the glass shattering around us was too much. The last thing I could remember was screaming endlessly as I held her head in my lap, feeling her hair, slick and gummy with blood.

The rest of Taryn’s death was too much to get through my brain.

She was the one destined to die in the Jeep, in the horrible accident she’d feared most. I wasn’t supposed to die then. Soon, but not then. After her death, though, I didn’t care. I wanted it.

The rest of that week was like gazing at snapshots from an old camera. Disjointed and distant. Me at the funeral. Me lying in bed. Me banging my head against the wall, delirious, wishing I would go next. I didn’t, couldn’t think about Nan or my mom, or the danger they were in. The hole in my chest opened to a chasm. It ached so bad sometimes I scratched and clawed at it, trying to get whatever poison was in there out. I green-elephanted constantly. I don’t think I ate, but maybe I did. I know I didn’t sleep. I don’t remember doing any of the things the living are supposed to do. No wonder I couldn’t see any of that in my visions. It all seemed so surreal, so vague. Like watching someone else’s life.

The next thing I remembered with perfect clarity was sitting on the lumpy sofa in front of Pat Sajak, staring at the dull brown shag carpet, feeling Nan’s heavy eyes on me. She asked me a question, probably something stupid, like whether I wanted more iced tea, but I didn’t hear her, didn’t answer, just watched the giant wheel tick to a stop on the big black Bankrupt.