Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
I am going to hell, Aurora Grace. After what I’ve done, it seems pretty obvious. But I don’t feel bad about it. Actually, I’m looking forward. I’ll see my mother again, and even though we will be burning for all eternity in a blazing furnace, surrounded, like the Bible says, by the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, she will hold me tight. She will kiss my forehead. And she will tell me that it’s only a ride.
Love,
April
Seventeen
Robin
“IT’S ALL OVER Twitter,” Eric said.
It was dark out—past 9:00 P.M. Robin had left the postfuneral gathering early in order to sit with her mother in intensive care, and she’d just returned to find the house completely dark except for the kitchen, where Eric stood by the refrigerator, a beer in one hand, staring at his ever-present phone.
“That makes two of you,” said Robin.
He looked up at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” She had to stop it with the pettiness. It wasn’t doing anybody any good. “I’m just . . . I’m tired.”
“I know, honey.” He started to move closer. She took a step back.
“Any change with your mom?”
She shook her head.
“I’m sorry.”
“What’s all over Twitter?”
He handed her his phone—which was, Robin had to admit, a sign that he might have nothing to hide. She looked at the screen. A series of tweets, all with the hashtag #TarryRidgeShooting. “Wow.”
“I was debating whether or not to show you,” he said. “But I figured it’s always best to know what kind of crazy you’re up against.”
She clicked on one tweet, linking to Robin’s Femme Seven column and speculating that “some incel POS” had shot Robin’s parents in response to it. #TarryRidgeShooting was accompanied by a dizzying array of hashtags, including #RedPillLosers #MicroPenis and #StoptheHate. Another tweet speculated that if it weren’t for Robin’s “feminist agenda,” her parents would “still be alive.” Yet another included a #GoodGuyWithAGun hashtag and pointed out that Robin’s parents would have been a lot better off had they been armed. She handed the phone to Eric, wondering what that tweeter might say if he knew that the gun that had shot them had actually belonged to her mother. “Hashtag no words,” she said.
“Labatoir wants to do a show about it.”
She looked at him. “Are you kidding me?”
“I wish I was.”
“Well . . . what did you say?”
“I told him to shove it up his ass.”
“Seriously?”
“I may have said butt. You know how Shawn hates profanity.”
Robin broke into a smile. She hadn’t genuinely smiled since the shooting and she almost felt guilty about it.