Free Redline by Alex Van Tol Page A

back.”
    We were halfway down the Terminator when an out-of-control skier smashed into Adrienne.
    She was ahead of me. I saw the whole thing. His scarecrow scramble as he tried to avoid her. Her helmet whiplashing backward on impact. Her board, sliced clean off its leash, bolting down the hill. Her body, thrown into the spruce tree at the side of the run. Her neck bending impossibly.
    Lesser boarders get hurt.
    The redness of the snow as I held her in my arms and screamed for help.
    I’m no lightweight .
    The blueness of her eyes as she looked at me, confused.
    I got your back.
    The blackness of my heart, knowing I had just killed my best friend.
    The memory runs its course. It leaves me slowly, like a cold blade being eased out of my chest. My teeth are hurting, and I try to unclench my jaw. My knuckles are white on the steering wheel.
    I press my foot to the floor, my eyes unblinking as I watch the speedometer climb. Seventy miles an hour. Eighty. Ninety. A hundred.
    One twenty. The engine roars its pleasure. The needle climbs.
    I crack my window and spark up a smoke. What the hell.
    Tonight’s a good night to die.

Chapter Two
    But I don’t.
    Three hours later, I pull into the driveway of my dad’s new house, deep in the suburbs of our city. I’m exhausted, spent, shaking.
    Adrienne died six months ago. Half a year. But in my mind, it feels like yesterday.
    Ade was my only real friend. I never considered that I might ever need more friends than her. I don’t have anyone else. I didn’t think I needed anyone else.
    I lift my chin. I don’t need anyone else. Dad’s right when he says we’re all alone in this world. It’s best to figure out how to be on your own. Not depend on other people for things. For favors. For friendship. For love.
    Back when Adrienne moved onto our block, I had tried to keep to myself. But she just wouldn’t give up. She saw something in me that she liked, I guess. I was twelve at the time. She just kept dropping by the house to talk. I got tired of trying to push her away. So I let her in. I let her like me. And I let myself like her.
    Which I should never have done, because look how it turned out for her.
    And look how it turned out for me.
    God, look how it turned out for my dad. Fifteen years of marriage, a ten-year-old kid, and boom: Mom just up and leaves.
    I don’t need anyone else. I don’t want anyone else. It just complicates things. Because as soon as you let someone in, you’re done. You’re not standing on your own anymore.
    I went to my mom’s place over Christmas break, shortly after Ade’s death. I spend my vacations with her at her place in Palm Springs. It was good to go away this time. I needed to put some distance between me and what had happened. Between me and all the whispers that erupted as soon as I’d pass people in the hallway at school.
    At first, Mom tried to help me sort through some stuff. But in the end, she just gave me space. It was all I could handle.
    When I came back in January, I started looking for a car. You would think that as the only child of an oil baron, I’d have gotten a free ride. That my father would have just bought me a car with the wads of money he’s got lying around. But there’s no sugar coming from this daddy. He grew up in a regular family. He says hard work got him to where he is now. Calls himself a self-made man. And no self-made man is going to buy his kid a car if he knows that she can do it herself. He’s all about self-reliance. He “sees the value” in making me work for what I want. Or something like that.
    Obviously, I don’t see quite as much value in it. But arguing with my dad over money is like bashing your head against a brick wall. It doesn’t get you anywhere, and at the end of it, all you’re left with is a headache.
    I’d been saving for two years for my car, working at the tutoring agency. I help kids with