Hit by Delilah S. Dawson Page B

that your mom’s dying and you don’t have a choice, there’s nothing but confusion.”
    â€œThose aren’t the stages of grief they taught us in health class,” I say like an idiot.
    â€œOh, well, you go to poor school.” He gives a comic eye roll. “At rich school, we take notes on hundred-dollar bills using unicorn tears, and our grief is vastly different and more complex. I was talking to Chauncey just the other day, and—”
    One lone chuckle escapes despite my best efforts to keep it tamped down.
    â€œShut up,” I say. “This is serious.”
    â€œMaybe I’m off base here.” He recrosses his feet. “But things are majorly effed up. I don’t see how being serious is going to make our situation any better.”
    â€œSo.”
    â€œSo.”
    He looks around the mail truck again, taking it all in.
    â€œDid you see their show at the Masquerade last year?” he says, inclining his head toward a poster.
    â€œOf course. It was amazing.”
    â€œWere you part of the conga line?”
    â€œOf course.” I mimic his earlier eye roll. “We poor people live to conga. Because it’s free. We conga to the food stamp line. I already sold my hair to buy tickets for this year’s show, but I need to live long enough to go and conga. So what are we going to do?”
    This moment with him has lasted way too long. I used to dream of being trapped in a small, dark space with a guy who wasn’t completely wretched. Not that I’m saying I like Wyatt, or that I even know him, or that there’s any point in pretending that anyone meets their soul mate on the first day of the apocalypse, but at least he’s not a mouth-breathing troglodyte or a dropout or a druggie. Probably. He can form coherent sentences. And he’s cute.But I don’t forget for a single second that there’s a gun under my hand and a knife in his.
    Apparently, he can’t forget it either.
    â€œWe could pull a Romeo and Juliet,” he says brightly, holding up the knife. “But not suicide. Like . . . a homicide pact.”
    â€œThat’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
    â€œWhatever. It’s romantic as hell.”
    I sigh dramatically. “That’s a story. This is real. We can’t just sit in the truck forever, making polite conversation and bad jokes and reliving awesome concerts. I’m on a pretty tight schedule.” I incline my head toward the bright red clock in the dash, the numbers ticking down. Ten more hours until it starts blinking again.
    â€œPlaces to go, people to kill?”
    â€œSeriously, shut up, Wyatt.”
    He lets out a long, controlled sigh that ends in a groan, signaling that the flirty banter is over.
    â€œYou’ve got a lot of nerve,” he says. “You think you can just tell people to shut up and they’re actually going to do it? Just because you have a gun and work for the bank that, according to you and a printed card, now owns America? You can’t tell me how to feel. Which is back to anger, by the way, so thanks for that.”
    â€œAt least I didn’t try to slit your throat while you were sleeping,” I shoot back.
    â€œBut I’m on that list,” he says. “Aren’t I?”
    I swallow hard and look away, my gaze landing on the stuffed turtle my ex–best friend gave me for my eighth birthday. She was as close as I’ve ever come to having a sister, to having anyone to love outside of my mom. How does Wyatt feel about Max? And if I tell him the truth, will he let me just drive away and get on with my business?
    â€œNope,” I say. “You’re not on it. If you were, I would have shot you already. I get a bonus for that sort of thing.”
    â€œJesus freaking Christ.” He bangs his head back against the truck. “They’ve turned life into a video game. And you just keep playing, or your guy