Christine Hurley Deriso - Things Id Rather Do Than Die

Christine Hurley Deriso

Mendota Heights, Minnesota

Things Id Rather Do Than Die 2018 by Christine Hurley Deriso. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Flux, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Edition
First Printing, 2018

Book design by Sarah Taplin
Cover design by Sarah Taplin
Cover images by Pixabay

Flux, an imprint of North Star Editions, Inc.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover models used for illustrative purposes only and may not endorse or represent the books subject.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Deriso, Christine Hurley, 1961- author.
Title: Things Id rather do than die / by Christine Hurley Deriso.
Other titles: Things I would rather do than die
Description: First edition. | Mendota Heights, MN : Flux, [2018] | Summary:
When the two most mismatched seniors at Walt Whitman High School
find themselves locked in an aerobics room overnight, their confinement
forces them to push past the labels theyve assigned each other and they
share a night theyll never forget Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018020721 (print) | LCCN 2018027292 (ebook) | ISBN
9781635830231 (ebook) | ISBN 9781635830224 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: | CYAC: High schoolsFiction. | SchoolsFiction. | Love
Fiction. | Dating (Social customs)Fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.D4427 (ebook) | LCC PZ7.D4427 Thg 2018 (print)
| DDC [Fic]dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020721

Flux
North Star Editions, Inc.
2297 Waters Drive
Mendota Heights, MN 55120
www.fluxnow.com

Printed in the United States of America

To Tori and Lisa K. Thank you for sharing your stories with me and for being, well, fabulous.

One

Jade

Our last customer of the day flashes me a pinched smile as he limps out of the gym.

Stop thinking about it.

Thats been my mantra for the past two weeks. Two weeks of scans and second opinions and hushed conversations about right temporal lobes and ...

Stop. Stop thinking about it.

Easier said than done as the customer winces in pain as he walks out the door. I give him a sympathetic smile, then blink the moisture from my eyes, hoping he doesnt notice. He would doubtless consider me certifiable for finding his overworked muscles weep-worthy. But the thoughts that Ive been pushing down for two weeks come spewing to the surface when I see such a healthy-looking man limping out the door.

A rumble of thunder echoes in the distance.

I jump a little when my boss, Stan, rests his hand on my back. Got the towels refilled and the machines wiped down, Jade?

Uh-oh. Does he notice my misty eyes? I have got to pull myself together.

Yep, I say, my fake cheerfulness now perfected to something of an art form. Everything except that guys elliptical. Ill go wipe it down now.

Okay, thats too cheery. I sound downright euphoric at the prospect.

Great, Stan says, winking at me (which confirms, to my mortification, that, yes, he does notice my tears). Ill start locking up. Then we can both go home and get a good nights sleep. Time and a half tomorrow, remember?

Yeah, that makes it totally cool to have to be back at 5:30 on Labor Day morning, I say, hoping my sarcasm douses his pity. I can take anything but pity.

As I walk from the counter toward the ellipticals, someone suddenly bursts through the door. I glance in the newcomers direction, then roll my eyes and head back for the counter. Stan never turns late-comers away, so it looks like my work day isnt over after all.

Im so sorry, the guy is saying breathlessly to Stan in a light Southern accent. Its Ethan Garrett. Weve been classmates since fourth gradethats when I moved here, to Tolliver, Georgiabut were just barely acquaintances. Hes a nice-enough guy, but his A-list status means we might as well inhabit separate planets.

Id forgotten you guys close at six on Sundays, Ethan continues, running his fingers through sun-streaked hair. Any chance I can squeeze in a quick workout? Twenty minutes tops?

No problem! Stan says jovially.

I press my lips together. Stan wont get stuck staying late, I will. This is why Ethan and I occupy parallel universes: hes clearly accustomed to using his aw-shucks charm to ensure the proverbial touchdown in every play of life. (Both literally and figuratively. Of course hes the high school quarterback. Because, you know, nature didnt heap quite enough wonderfulness on him with dimples and natural highlights, so society had to step in and take up the slack.)

Thanks so much, Ethan tells Stan, then tosses me a dimply aw-shucks grin as he heads toward the equipment.

Yeah. Definitely an A-lister.

And which list am I on?

Im an outlier. Take my academic standing, for example: I make good grades (excellent grades in the subjects I care about), and I have killer one-on-one discussions with my teachers. For instance, Mr. Becker and I once spent a weeks worth of study halls discussing whether the ending of Catch 22 was a massive victory or epic fail. But Im not a joiner, so I tend to fly under the radar. Whereas my AP classmates club memberships take up half a page by their yearbook photos, my yearbook photo looks like a mugshot. Not only does the bio space look like a wasteland, but my vaguely grumpy expression (Gias words, not mine . I was going for deep and angsty) suggests homicidal tendencies.

Im even an outlier in my own family. My uber-outgoing sixteen-year-old brother, Pierce, bears an uncanny resemblance to our dad, with his lanky six-foot frame, chocolatey complexion, tight black curls, and crazy-gorgeous cheekbones (courtesy of some Cherokee blood that filtered into the gene pool at some point, or so I hear). My eleven-year-old half-sister, Sydney, looks like Lena, my Filipino stepmother, with shiny, ebony hair and naturally pouty lips. Me? Other than my caramel-colored skin and dark curls, Im told I look like the white lady whose texts and emails Ive been ignoring for the past few days. My friend, Gia, jokes that our family portraits look like college recruiting brochures.

And the diversity doesnt end there. Lets see: On some Sundays, Im dragged to Grandmas church, Mount Zion AME, for lots of free-form swaying and hand-clapping, while on others Im sitting/standing/kneeling ramrod straight and mumbling preassigned lines at Our Lady of Perpetual Monotony. Lenas the Catholic in the family, and Ive actually completed most of the sacraments. But I inherited my dads dont-ask-dont-tell approach to organized religion, and now that Im old enough to protest, Im mostly left alone on Sunday mornings to read my novels. Grandma raised Dad, and Lena married him, so they cant exactly rag on me for following his lead of sleeping in. Not that it doesnt keep them from trying.

So how would I categorize myself? Lets just say that there are the Ethans of the world, who have one easy box to check on demographic forms, and there are the African/Caucasian/Cherokee/Protestant/Catholic/Agnostic girls like me. Or, to put it even more succinctly, the Ethans are the stars of the show. The Jades are the extras.