This Is Not a Test

Courtney Summers

This book is for David Summers.

“It is not my expectation to change the world. I want to change my life.”

I love and miss you, Dad.

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Begin Reading

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Acknowledgments

Also by Courtney Summers

About the Author

Lily,

I woke up and the last piece of my heart disappeared.

I opened my eyes and I felt it go.

I sit on the edge of the bathtub and run the fingernail of my thumb up the inside of my wrist. I trace a vein until it pitchforks out and disappears under the fleshiest part of my palm. Lily couldn’t sleep; a few weeks before she left, she had all these pills to help her do that. I didn’t know why at the time but now I think her guilt was probably keeping her up at night. When I searched her bedroom earlier, I couldn’t find them, which is too bad. I was counting on it. Her. I should know better. It just seemed like maybe the stars would align for this—that the day I decided to die, everything would go right. But they didn’t and now I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Three sharp raps on the bathroom door—onetwothree—stop me breathing. I look up from my wrist. I didn’t hear his footsteps. I never hear them when it matters anymore, but I hear them now, retreating down the hall. I wait a few minutes before leaving the bathroom and then I walk the same path downstairs he did. His cologne soaks the air, musky and cheap, and the scent is so heavy in my lungs it makes me want to tear my skin off. It’s stronger the closer I get to the kitchen and mingles with a more bitter scent: burnt toast. He burned the toast. He only does that when he thinks I deserve it. I check my watch.

I am five minutes late for breakfast.

Early morning light streams in through the window above the sink. Everything it touches turns gold. Everything looks golden, but it all feels so gray. An envelope sits next to my plate of (burnt) toast. I pick it up and run my fingers along the edge of it as my father explains it’s for the school, about my absence. His cover. This is what we are going to tell them kept me home for so long: I had that flu that’s going around. Do I understand? I had the flu.

He says, “Let me get a look at your face.”

I tilt my chin up. It’s not good enough. In one swift motion, he reaches across the table and I flinch away before I can stop myself. He exhales impatiently, takes my chin in his hand, and turns it roughly toward the light. I keep my eyes on the envelope, like I could turn it into a letter from Lily just by looking at it. A letter that says, hey, I’m coming back for you tonight. I used to read the actual note she left me over and over again and I’d pretend those words were coded between the ones that said I’m so sorry and I can’t do this anymore.