The World Without Us

Robin Stevenson

Description

What do you do when someone you care about wants you to follow him to a really dark place? Do you pull away? Do you help plan the trip? Or do you put your own life on the line in the hope that love will coax your friend away from the precipice? When Mel meets Jeremy, she thinks she has finally found someone who understands her, someone who will listen to her, someone who cares. But Jeremy has secrets that torment him, and Mel isn’t sure she can save him from his demons. All she knows is that she has to save herself.


Set in Florida, against a backdrop of anti-death-penalty activism, The World Without Us examines one girl’s choices in a world where the stakes are very high and one misstep can hurt—or even kill—you.

Sujets

• Social Themes
• Young Adult Fiction
• Florida
• Florida (homonymie)
• Suicide

Informations

• Publié par: Orca Book Publishers
• Date de parution: 15 février 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781459806825
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The World Without Us
Robin
Stevenson
ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS
Copyright © 2015 Robin Stevenson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Stevenson, Robin, 1968–, author The world without us / Robin Stevenson.
Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-4598-0680-1 (pbk.).— ISBN 978-1-4598-0681-8 (pdf).— ISBN 978-1-4598-0682-5 (epub)
I. Title. PS 8637. T 487 W 67 2015 j C 813'.6 C 2014-906598-1
First published in the United States, 2015 Library of Congress Control Number: 2014951602
Summary: Mel is tormented by thoughts that she may be responsible for herbest friend’s suicide attempt.
Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.
Cover design by Chantal Gabriell Cover images by iStockphoto.com and Dreamstime.com Author photo by David Lowes ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS PO B OX 5626, S TN . B Victoria, BC C ANADA V 8 R 6 S 4 ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS PO B OX 468 C USTER , WA USA 98240-0468
www.orcabook.com
18 17 16 15 • 4 3 2 1
For Pat Schmatz
Table of Contents
Falling
Death Row
Death Penalty
Another Chance
Dreaming
Planning to Die
Black Holes
Lucid Dreams
Event Horizon
Waking
Drowning
Water Under the Bridge
Execution Day
Last Meal
Weirdo, Freak, Retard
The Point of It All
Crazy Is Normal
Krishna Consciousness
Zombie Girl
Running Away
Letting Go
Acknowledgments
Falling
Jeremy stands close to the low concrete barrier that runs for miles along the edge of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. The wind is whipping his hair back, blowing cool night air and the smell of salt into our faces. He braces his hands against the top of the wall and leans out over the water. “Come over here, Mel!”
The wall only reaches my waist, and when I stand close to it and look down, I feel dizzy, as if sheer gravity could pull me over. Far below, the water is an inky black. I step back, shivering, and look up at Jeremy instead. He is facing into the wind, and I fix his profile in my mind, as if I’m taking a picture: black hair flying away from his high forehead, long slightly beaky nose, parted lips, serious expression. Resolute.
“Jeremy?” I say. My voice sounds strange in my own ears. “We’re not really going to do this, are we?”
“Yes.” He looks at me. “You know we are.”
“I don’t know. I never thought we’d take it this far.”
“We won’t feel a thing. It’ll be fast, Mel. Real fast.”
I imagine those long seconds of falling, time slowing down, the dark water rushing toward me. Will my life really flash before my eyes? Or is that just a myth?
“Here,” Jeremy says. “Take my hand. We’ll jump together.” He reaches for me. I take his hand in mine and am surprised by how warm it is. With my other hand, I tighten my grip on the metal post of the No Stopping sign we’ve parked beside.
I guess this is crazy, but I am terrified of falling.
“It’ll be okay, Mel,” Jeremy says. His voice is so soft, I can barely hear him over the wind blowing through the bridge cables.
“Jeremy.” I start to cry. “Stop. Please.”
“Have you changed your mind? Because if you have—”
“Maybe,” I say. “I don’t know.” I’m sobbing now. “I don’t know .” Jeremy thinks we’ll come back, that we’ll be reincarnated. I don’t know what I believe. I haven’t had dreams like the ones he’s had. Mostly, I think that this is all there is: you get one shot, one life, and the only choice is whether you want to live it or not. If we jump, the world will just go on without us.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s just do it. Ready?” He lifts one leg, swings it over the wall—
“No. Jeremy…” I grab his arm, and the falling weight of him jerks at me, pulls me forward. Something inside me is screaming no no no, and my heart kicks inside my chest so hard it hurts, and it’s too late, my feet are lifting off the ground, I’m going to fall…
And then Jeremy’s sleeve slips from my hand and I am clinging on, one arm wrapped around the metal pole, my feet kicking and scrabbling for traction on the bridge. I am still here, standing on the edge.
And Jeremy is gone.
I stand there, staring down into the darkness that swallowed him up. I feel like time has stopped. I can’t see anything, can’t even make out the surface of the water under the bridge. There’s just blackness down there, thick and solid.
I could still do it, could still jump…but I already know I won’t. I turn away from the barrier and watch car after car flash past. People going about their lives like nothing happened. No one stops. My legs feel like liquid. My breath comes in painful, ragged gasps. Distant sirens get louder, and lights flash red and blue from way down the long line of the bridge. I wait there, frozen, until a police car pulls up and I hear someone shout. I slip down into a crouch, my back to the concrete wall. I am shaking, my whole body trembling, my teeth chattering. Two men in uniform are getting out of the car and one is walking slowly toward me, his hands raised, palms out, as if he is approaching a wild horse and doesn’t want to spook it. “It’s all right,” he says.

But nothing is all right. Nothing will ever be all right. “He jumped,” I say. “Jeremy jumped.”
“Why don’t you get in the car?” he says. He’s an older man, with stubbly gray hair and tired eyes. “Out of the wind.”
“What about Jeremy?” I say.
“A boat’s already gone out to look for him,” he says. “Someone saw him jump and called it in.”
To look for his body, I think. That’s all that’s down there. Whatever made him Jeremy is gone. I move toward the car and I can see the cop relax, his arms dropping back to his sides. “He just jumped,” I say again. “I didn’t think he’d really do it.”
“Fourteenth one this year,” the second man says. He’s leaning against the car, and behind him, the lit-up yellow cables of the bridge slant upward into the night sky, glowing and weirdly beautiful. As I approach, he straightens and opens the back door for me. “Hop in. You’ll be warmer.”
I slide into the backseat and wrap my arms around myself. The older man gets in beside me, and the younger guy gets in the driver’s seat. The doors click locked, and I wonder if they think I am going to dash out and leap over the wall.
Every muscle in my body is vibrating like a tightly strung wire. “I didn’t think he meant it,” I say again. “I didn’t think he’d really do it.”
“I’m Officer Jeffers,” the cop beside me says. “What’s your name?”
“Melody.”
“Was it your boyfriend who jumped, Melody?”
I shake my head. “My friend.” I am numb. None of this feels real. “His name is Jeremy Weathers.”
The cop in the front seat is talking into his radio. He turns to face me. “Do you know his address?”
I picture Jeremy’s house: the low, ranch-style bungalow, the palm-tree-dotted expanse of green lawn. “Um, Lakewood Estates,” I say. “He lives with his mom… I don’t remember the house number, but it’s on Desoto near Columbus Way.”
The cop relays the information to whomever he is talking to, and I imagine someone driving over there, through the wide dark streets of his subdivision, up his long driveway. A cop knocking on the door, Jeremy’s mother answering, dressed in her housecoat, maybe, since they’ll be waking her up. She’ll see the cop standing there, and she’ll feel a sudden clutch of fear.
I wasn’t supposed to be here for this part. Jeremy and I never talked about anything after the leap from the bridge. I never thought about what would happen after.
There wasn’t supposed to be an after.
“The fellow who called it in said you were right there by the wall with the kid who jumped,” the older officer—Jeffers—says. “He said it looked like you tried to stop him.”
I stare at him blankly, and the two men exchange glances.
“We’re going to take you to the hospital.” He reaches across me and buckles my seat belt. “Can we call someone to meet us there? Your mom, maybe?”
I close my eyes, and for a moment I wish I had jumped too. Only not really. Because in that moment when Jeremy’s weight almost pulled me over with him, in that moment when I thought I was falling, I realized one thing: I didn’t want to die. “I want to go home,” I s