Life Before

Copyright © 2016 by Michele Bacon

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Sarah Brody.

Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-639-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-640-3

Printed in the United States of America

for Charles, my S. H.

P
REFACE

The epic road trip of my dreams features two bags of junk food, one awesome girl, and ample music. No murders.

This … this is all wrong. Four hours and a hundred miles ago, I escaped my police escort and left everything—Gretchen, my friends, my summer hijinks—behind.

Headed east on this stinking, stuffy Greyhound bus, I am alone. I
hope
I’m alone. If Gary’s on my tail, I’m done.

Right now, I need to disappear. In shorts and a navy T-shirt, with my ball cap pulled casually over my face, I look like any other guy.

Any other guy, analyzing every single car on the road to ensure I haven’t been followed. Any other guy with two IDs—one genuine, one fake—running scared from a murderer.

That sounds more ominous than it is. No serial killer is stalking the cow towns of northeastern Ohio. There’s just one guy—one murderer—and he only wants me.

He killed once, and now he’s stalking me, waiting me out, watching my every move. I have no choice. I have to skip town.

O
NE

(Three Weeks Prior)

“Are you naked under there, Xander?”

Jill is the world’s most annoying alarm clock. Every morning, she calls my phone ten times over the course of four minutes. She bangs on my front door for a few more before things escalate to a critical state of Get Xander To School. This heightened state of emergency involves her ripping off my covers.

After two solid years of early mornings, I’m just about done.

Jill’s patience is thin. “I asked whether you’re sleeping naked again.”

“Nope.” I haven’t slept naked since my unfortunate exposure last September. Cringing, I await the inevitable.

Jill whips off my sheet. “Boxer briefs. Figures. You have three minutes. I’ll find breakfast.”

Jill is a great friend—my best friend, truly—but I strongly suspect sadist tendencies.

On my way to the john, I wish for the millionth time for a normal family. Mom finally gets by with just one job, but apparently a nine-to-five is too much to ask for. I get it—Mom needs all the help she can get, and encouraging Jill to prod me to school probably seemed practical to her. But giving Jill a key to our house and authorizing her to kick me out of bed? That’s unforgivable.

Exactly three minutes after the rude awakening, I stumble out of the house in clothes that smell fine. For the last time, I run across the lawn between our houses and slide into Jill’s vintage brown Beetle.

The free ride is not without sacrifice: the front seat’s faux white leather has been baking in full sun for an hour. Perching on the seat edge to spare my skin isn’t remotely comfortable, but it’s better than the crusty pink faux fur Jill used on the back seat. We call the car Neapolitan, but it’s only cool in winter.

I shouldn’t complain. When I turned sixteen, I got a used ten-speed, so a blistering car seat is still a pretty good deal.

Jill tosses an off-brand diet granola bar in my lap. “Sorry. I couldn’t find anything good in your kitchen.”

My mom still shops like we’re totally broke.

Jill peels out between a Dodge SUV and an ancient blue Oldsmobile. “You missed a great lecture last night. Evolution of the human brain? The discussion lasted past my curfew.”

And yet, still, she was at my house at the crack of dawn.

Jill sings along with the radio and asks, “You awake yet?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

“Super. I’ve been thinking. We should go somewhere for Infinite Summer.”

She says this as if Infinite Summer is a celebrated tradition and not a moniker of her own invention. Jill sincerely believes this summer—the one between high school and college—will bring the best months of our lives: no AP homework, no college obligations yet, and no responsibility (unless you count my part-time job at the batting cages, which I don’t).

Personally, I think the best time of my life will start in August, when I trade my current, messy life for my real life, at college.

I
would
like one big adventure under my belt before then. Well, I want a dozen, but one would be great. For all my dreaming of a cross-country tour, I’ve never actually left Ohio (unless you count numerous trips over the Pennsylvania border for chicken wings, which I don’t).

Infinite Summer or not, a road trip sounds awesome. Somewhere sunny with a beach and no parental guidance would be perfect.

Jill has other plans. “Before I go off to swim camp—I still can’t believe I got in as a counselor, can you?”

“No.” I have a sneaking suspicion they hired counselors with experience sneaking out or sneaking contraband in, but I can’t tell
her
that. “Focus, Jill. Where are we going before your swim camp?”

“Oh! I think we should all take a camping trip—a real one, with tents and backpacks and stuff—all together for one last hurrah … in the Adirondacks!”

No.

Jill is the champion of The Big Plan. Last July, she bent a lot of rules to scope out a funky Cincinnati dance club. We had plenty of cash and made the trek without raising parental suspicions. Everything was great, except Jill hadn’t anticipated the enormous sign that read 18
AND OVER
ONLY. (Their emphasis.) Jill and two of our friends got in on fake IDs. Tucker and I were left outside for two whole hours before the threesome emerged from the club soaking with sweat and stinking of stale marijuana.

To Jill’s credit, she did buy me a fake ID after that. Since I’m Alexander, she chose the name Graham Bell as a joke. Except the guy who made the fake misspelled it. Graham Bel is nineteen, and he’s been helping me see obscure bands in tiny venues all over northeastern Ohio for nearly a year. I don’t feel guilty using it, either, because a club’s entry age is an arbitrary rule, not an actual law. When I turn eighteen in August, I’ll pitch it.

Jill’s fake uses her full name—Jillian Bernard—and makes her twenty-one so she can drink in public.

But I digress.

At seventeen, or eighteen, or twenty-one, roughing it in the Adirondacks does not appeal. I prefer a real bed and a roof. Not to mention my somewhat irrational yet totally genuine fear of being dismembered by bears. I absolutely will not be camping in the Adirondacks.

“You’re remembering that grizzly bear annihilating a housecat at Cleveland Zoo, aren’t you?” Jill says. “There are no grizzlies in upstate New York, you know. This would be fun! You, me, Tucker. A few others, including Gretchen.”

She has me there.

“Gretchen.” She stretches it to three syllables:
Guh-ret-chen.

Gretchen Taylor could scale anything the Adirondacks have to offer. She’s lean and strong and somehow, even in Ohio’s darkest January days, she’s tan. Not in a leather type of way, but in a healthy kissed-by-the-sun kind of way that suggests she belongs outdoors. Since the day she showed up in Laurel Woods—wearing an I ♥ NY T-shirt on April 8 in the seventh grade—I have wanted to date her. She’s brilliant. And funny. And hot.

Gretchen is everything. Amazing. Her stories about exploring Europe and New York City excite me at every turn. And even though she’s practically a junior chef, she loves cheap Dairy Queen treats as much as I do. And she reads a book a week for fun.

I guess I can risk my life camping if it means a long weekend with Gretchen. I’m a fast runner, and I’ll pack light.

I’ll even let her share my tent if she also is scared of bears.

To Jill, I say, “I guess I would rough it for you.”

“For me.” Jill’s sarcasm is part of her charm. Her many charms, actually. She taught me how to braid hair, gave me a list of phrases never to say to girls, and occasionally forces me to watch a tearjerker—all of which helps with girls I actually want to date. Or it will someday.

“Is that Gary?” Jill waggles a finger toward the school visitors’ parking lot, where a bright blue Mustang shines in the morning sun. Red fringe, which may or may not be a nipple tassel, hangs from the antenna. As we round the corner, we can read the plate:
HACK U
.

I can’t handle all the saliva flooding into my mouth. Gary—I can’t stomach the thought of calling him Dad—is my father. Or he used to be. I guess he still is, but we don’t exactly have a normal relationship. He used to beat on my mom, but then they separated, and now they’re divorced. Ever since Mom forfeited child support—to our own financial detriment, it should be known—he has left us in peace.

My whole past—the horrible family life, Gary’s dual personalities, the abuse—starts churning around in my brain. Gary does not have a single reason to be at my school.

He lives way on the other side of town, maybe twenty minutes away, and I haven’t seen him in ages. Mostly, I try to forget he exists.

In this parking lot right this second, he actually doesn’t exist, so we’re okay. Jill and I hustle into the school to avoid a confrontation.

Tucker hops down from his radiator perch when he sees us. “Morning Jilly.”

“Hey, Tucker. Everything ready for the party?”

“Not hardly.”

“We’ll be ready, I promise.” Jill disappears into a sea of backpacks and bare legs.

Teachers come down hard on anyone wearing shorts above the knee. To make a point, the girls have—blessedly—rebelled in their shortest miniskirts. Some arbitrary rules are okay in my book.

Tucker and I wend through nuzzling couples on our way to my locker. I half expect to see Gary around the corner, but he’s not in here, either.

“Jill tell you about camping?” Tucker says.

“She did.”

“I told her black people don’t camp.”

Shuffling books between my locker and messenger bag, I have to ask. “How’d that work out for you?”

“She didn’t buy it. Worse, Mom heard me say it, and she smacked me upside the head. She even promised Jilly she’d pack my bags and kick my ass out the door on the appointed date.”

“She would, too,” I say.