Free Amity by Micol Ostow

concern. “This is all getting bl—”
    “—I’ll come back soon,” Ro said shortly. There was a small hitch in her voice. “But I can’t stay tonight. I’m just going to say good-bye to the kids. Then I’m off.”
    My throat tightened again, swelling hot, tender beneath my fingertips. Faintly, I heard a buzz—just one, simple and razor sharp. I gagged, tried to whisper. Tried to call out, vainly.
    I couldn’t. The air in Amity was heavy, weighing me down and closing me off, cell by cell.
    The darkness came, again.
     
     
     
     
     

BUT DOWN IN THE WELL-DEEP BLACK , tucked in some imaginary middle space, Ro’s voice came to me. It was warm and slow, like honey. As she spoke, her hair swung against me, brushing my cheek, cocooning me in a silky curtain, reaching me, somehow, even through Amity’s murky fog.
    “I’m going, Gwen, but I’m here for you.” Her words cut channels through the inky distance, tugged at me in my haze.
    “You’ll let me know if you need anything. Just call for me, and I’ll come.”
    She squeezed my hand.
    Through the darkness, I tried to squeeze back.
    Moments later, I heard her engine turn over in the driveway, then growl and fade away. My breath came more easily now, improving in slight but steady half measures. The darkness began to lift, to recede.
    Of course, it was too late—my breath, the light. I’d lost the chance to say good-bye to Ro.
    She was shot in the head , I thought.
    She was .

TEN YEARS EARLIER
    DAY 3
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
    I LIED ABOUT GOING STRAIGHT HOME EMPTY-HANDED from that shop, our second day at Amity, I mean.
    I didn’t end up buying anything that would keep the boathouse door closed, that part was the truth, yeah. But another truth was how I hated—always hate—to disappoint Jules. So I didn’t come home completely flat-out, bottoms-up empty-handed. Not completely.
    I did bring her something back. Just a little dumb nothing piece of junk from a run-down convenience store, no big deal. But that afternoon when I went to give it to her, thinking it would make her smile, or whatever, she and Mom were all caught up putting contact paper on the cabinet shelves. That took about thirty years or so, and then it was more crappy pizza with the slimy canned mushrooms on top that no one likes except Dad, and another night of reading, stuffed up and wrapped like a mummy in my sleeping bag, listening to the firecracker banging from outside, from down by the river.
    So that night, I just kept to myself, and waited.

 
    DAY 4
     
     
     
     
     

THE FIRST REAL CHANCE I HAD FOR JULES’S LITTLE SURPRISE came the next night. Dad mumbled something about a poker game and tore out after dinner, peeling off down the drive like if he moved fast enough, he could outrun his own shitty soul. Mom tossed the takeout containers—tonight was crappy Chinese instead of crappy pizza for a fun change—and went to give Abel his bath, and then it was just Jules and me, her with some girlie romance book, the kind with loopy silver writing on the cover, as she sprawled out in the sewing room, buried under piles of fuzzy, pilling blankets.
    I was pretending to read, flipping the pages of my beat-up paperback back and forth, but the truth was that the brunette had met a real nasty fate a few chapters back, in that elevator scene, and honestly, now it was all getting a little boring.
    The story needed more blood, is what I’m saying. I hate being bored.
    I was stretched out on the floor, my legs buried under a puddle of blankets so only the holey toes of my socks peeked out. Jules’s gift-thing was shoved under the couch I was leaning against, and she was curled up on the saggy cushions above me. The sofa was pushed up opposite a fireplace, and with the way the air was so clammy and cool, I thought a fire would have been nice, like I could even picture the orange glow ofthe burning wood shining out on us. A fire would go nice at Amity, I thought. But I was too