Free 100 Sideways Miles by Andrew Smith

opens,
    A tiny man crawls through.
    He climbs down a ladder
    And gets inside you.
    One atom at a time,
    One atom at a time.

    â€œWell, what if you really did come through a Lazarus Door but you just don’t remember doing it?” Julia said.
    â€œUm. Sure.” I sighed. “It’s a novel. Novels are fiction. Some people got really crazy over that dumb book.”
    I pulled my shirt down and turned to face her.
    â€œWhat happened to you, then?” Julia asked.
    I suddenly stopped thinking about anything that I used to keep protected.
    Things started to be freed, and the prison gates swung open.
    Something was being rendered out of my heart in the knackery of this night.
    I said, “A dead horse fell out of the sky and landed on me. It broke my back. It’s why I blank out, have seizures. Cade calls it ‘doing my thing.’ That’s the truth—that’s what really happened, okay?”
    â€œA dead horse?”
    â€œYes.”
    I looked directly into her eyes. “It fell out of a truck that washauling it to a knackery—a rendering plant—where they turn dead things into all kinds of shit you never thought contained dead things.”
    â€œWell, I think whatever it is looks amazing. Like you actually came from another world. And you had no idea I was sitting there, trying to get you to say something?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œThat must be cool,” Julia decided.
    â€œI guess it is.”
    I shrugged.
    â€œI wonder what it must be like.”
    â€œIt’s like emptying everything out of your head, but you can still see and hear and feel. And you don’t care at all about who you are, or about anything, actually. It’s, um, beautiful.”
    A car horn honked from the front of my house.
    Cade Hernandez yelled, “Come! On! Fucker!”
    I took a deep breath.
    I said, “What? It’s been, like, fifteen seconds.”
    Then Julia said, “I bet your girlfriend would be jealous if she knew I was driving you around, that I asked you to take off your shirt for me.”
    â€œOh, sure.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œYou’re messing with me again.”
    â€œI promise I’m not.”
    Twenty miles.
    Twenty miles.
    â€œOkay. Like I’d ever have a girlfriend,” I said.
    â€œWhy?” Julia laughed. “Are you gay or something?”
    She was beautifully exasperating.
    I turned away from her and walked toward the front yard.
    I said, “No.”
    Julia followed after me.
    â€œHey, wait. I’m sorry, Finn. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
    â€œI’m fine, Julia.”

    She grabbed my hand as I rounded the corner, heading toward her car. Cade was in the front seat of Julia’s Mustang, fumbling around to find the trunk release, no doubt to get to his locked-up beer.
    I stopped, and Julia Bishop kissed me on the lips.
    I smelled flowers. It was only her hair.
    It was a short kiss, and to be honest my first reaction was to pull away from her. I had never kissed anyone on the mouth before. It startled and amazed me. Maybe that did make me gay or something. But my atoms were so confused. I felt like I could vaporize on the spot.
    â€œWhat was that about?” I said.
    â€œI’m sorry you’re having such a sucky night, Finn.”
    â€œNights like this come around only once every sixty billion miles,” I said.
    And it wasn’t so bad after all.

BLAKE GRUNWALD’S SHITTY PARTY
    â€œI’m not feeling so good,” Cade said.
    I wouldn’t have expected anything to the contrary. Cade Hernandez had finished off at least ten beers that night, and as soon as we got to Blake Grunwald’s ridiculously bad party, he started drinking gin, too.
    Cade’s skin, which was unblemished and usually glowed a radiant, healthy pink-peach, looked like slowly boiled pork fat.
    I had a feeling there was a simmering stew of atoms inside Cade