Where All Light Tends to Go by David Joy

spread across her face and those teeth were just about as pretty as anything I’d ever seen, a whole lot more than fifteen thousand dollars’ worth. Dimples pressed into the corners of her smile, and raised cheeks squinted her eyes. She was far too gorgeous to be sitting next to me on that ratty couch. This house, this town, and everything about this place were beneath her and always had been. I was beneath her as well, but she’d never seemed to notice, or at least not to care. “You hit him. I was just sitting there.”
    “Like I said, he had it coming.”
    “You’re right about that, Jacob. Matter of fact, you’re right about a whole lot of things that people never seem to give you credit for.”
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Nothing.” For the first time since she’d come into the house, Maggie looked me square. Her eyes dilated like she’d just eaten one hell of a pill, but I knew she hadn’t. “Turns out, he and I just weren’t cut out for each other.”
    “Well, no shit, Mags. I could’ve told you that a long time ago.” I was damn near jittery in hopes that she’d come to rekindle what we’d had. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to tuck her hair behind her ears and hold her while I kissed her. But I tried to summon what little bit of Daddy’s calm held in my veins so as not to let it show. In all honesty, it was ridiculous to think a girl like that would want anything to do with me, especially after I’d already broken her heart. “What makes you say that?”
    “A whole lot of things, Jacob, a whole lot of things that have been building up for a long time. It wasn’t just you hitting him.”
    “What the hell did you ever see in him anyways?”
    “I don’t know, Jacob. When you left, he was there. I guess that’s part of it. And part of it is that I always thought he had potential to be something. I always thought he had something to offer the world if he’d ever get his shit together.”
    “Yeah, it looked like he really had his shit together. Looked like that son of a bitch is really headed somewhere from what I seen.”
    “I know, Jacob. I just thought—”
    “That kind of thinking ain’t worth a damn, Mags. That type of thinking will have you waiting around a lifetime for something that’s never going to happen. God knows you’re too smart for that.”
    Maggie didn’t answer. I know that she knew I was right, deep down she knew that, but those types of things are hard to admit to ourselves.
    “You didn’t do any of that shit, did you?”
    “No. But he was trying awfully hard to get me to, and to be honest, I was just about ready to do whatever it took to shut him up. I just wanted to shut all of them up. They’re always giving me a hard time, like I’m a goody-goody or something.”
    “You kind of are.”
    “What?”
    “You are a goody-goody, Mags, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s not like any of these assholes are headed anywhere.”
    “I’m not any different, Jacob.”
    “That’s bullshit.”
    “Why?”
    “Since the moment I set eyes on you, I knew you were headed somewhere. I haven’t ever known where, but I knew you weren’t going to be here forever.”
    “No one is, Jacob.”
    “Every goddamn one of us aside from you is going to be here forever. You point your finger to one person who left out of here and made something, just one person.”
    “Jennifer Brinkley.”
    “Jennifer Brinkley? Fuck, Mags, she’s working at a strip club in Greenville! That place isn’t two steps better than hocking jewelry.”
    “Well, how would you know that?” Maggie cut eyes at me as if to jokingly disapprove.
    “I don’t, Mags. But regardless, that isn’t what I’d call getting out. There’s going to come a time when the only thing she’s got going for her ain’t worth a damn thing to anybody. Then where you think Jennifer Brinkley’s going to be? She’s going to be right back up here on this mountain, or laid up with some old boy in a single-wide in