Survive the Night

If that’s the price she must pay to get out of this place, then so be it. Her only hope is that she won’t eventually come to regret it.

Charlie knows the reality of the situation.

Their relationship is ending.

Not in a both-going-our-separate-ways way. Definitely not in a Rhett Butler “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” way. But Charlie understands that some kind of breakup will be the inevitable result.

“A little time away is all you need.”

Her plan is to skip the goodbyes. Although she used to be good friends with many girls on her floor, that all ended the moment Maddy died. Now it’s best to simply vanish. Here one moment, gone the next. Just like Maddy herself.

“This will be good for you,”

She doesn’t lock the door behind her. Why bother? Her last act before departing is to wipe away the names scrawled in erasable marker on the whiteboard affixed to the door.

Charlie + Maddy

The words leave a smudge of ink on her palm.

Charlie stands in the center of the room, still momentarily lost. How strange it is—how utterly jarring—to go from the picture in her mind’s eye to harsh reality. There’s no happiness left in this room. She sees that now. It’s just a white-walled box that contains only memories now soured by tragedy.

Robbie watches her from the doorway. He knows what just happened.

A movie in her mind.

The golden sunlight of an autumn afternoon streams through the window, giving everything a sepia glow and making Charlie feel both joy and sadness. Nostalgia. That beautiful ache.

Someone enters the room behind her.

I can leave tomorrow, but it won’t be until late. Nine o’clock. If you want, there’s a space in the passenger seat with your name on it.”

“I’ll take it.”

She doubts it will come to that. Because he seems nice. Friendly. Definitely not the type of guy who’d do the things that had been done to Maddy and the others.

Besides, he’s not a stranger. Not completely.

As the situation unfolds frame by frame, like film through a projector, she knows exactly how it all happened.

She knows because this isn’t a movie.

It’s the here and now.

She’s the girl in the car.

The man behind the wheel is a killer.