SATURDAY, MARCH 30
8 days left

I park in front of the campground. If you can even call it a campground. It looks more like a muddy lot to me. I'm no expert in campgrounds, but I'd have to think this is about as basic as you can get. The only amenities it seems to offer are a fire pit—complete with half-burnt logs and ashes—a large oak tree, and a rusted trash can.
Harry steps out of the car and walks around to the trunk to grab the tent. Far off in the distance, I can see a rocky shoreline, the river lapping up against the pebbles. Maybe this won't be so bad. Maybe this will give us some time to talk. Maybe I'll finally find the words to explain what's going on with me.
I pull my backpack out of the backseat and follow Harry toward our campsite. When he unzips the tent bag, I notice he's hidden two bottles of wine inside it.
"Classy," I say.
"You can drink red wine warm. Warm beer is gross. I made an executive decision."
"You could've put the beer in the cooler." I ignore the fact that he's talking to me like a loser who's never drank alcohol before. Even though, to be fair, I am a loser who's never drank alcohol before. Unless you count a few sips of Steve's beer he gave me when I was like eleven and he and Mom were hosting a backyard barbecue for some of their friends.
"Yeah, but my mom packed the cooler. She would have noticed."
"You could have put them in later."
"Jesus, do you really want beer that much? I can run into town."

I shove my hands into the pockets of my black jeans and walk farther toward the river. "No. It's fine. I was just giving you a hard time."
He pulls the tent out of the bag and fumbles around with it. A couple of times I think about offering him help, but I know nothing about tents. I hear him cursing under his breath and I decide to take a walk by the water.
"I'll be back soon," I call out, and he doesn't answer.
I walk down the other side of the hill. My sneakers sink into the damp grass. As I move closer to the river, I see an empty dock. There's no one around. Broken fishing lines float in the water, and I try to imagine the place full of people, laughing families and eager fishermen. It doesn't seem like a place that would ever be crowded. It seems like a place that was meant to be lonely. I hear a few birds chirping to one another and the roar of a boat's motor off in the distance, but all I can focus on is the ringing in my head. I cup my hands over my ears and hum to myself. Bach's Mass in B Minor fills my mind.
I lean against the splintered wooden railing and a gust of wind slides off the water and touches my face. Sometimes it feels like the wind has hands, has fingers. Sometimes I wonder if I could reach out and grab it. If it would grab me back, squeeze the space between my fingers, take me away. I wonder if Harry ever thinks about these things, if anyone else ever thinks about these things.
I look behind me and I can't even make out our campsite. I go back to staring at the water. The rocky bottom of the riverbank is covered with slimy algae and rusted fishing hooks. I know that if I jumped, I'd only end up wet and dirty. I wouldn't end up dead.
It's not Crestville Pointe. That jump will kill me, will kill Harry.

I head back to the campsite. My steps are heavy and sluggish. I'm not in any rush to get back to Harry and his beerless cooler and his questions about whether I'm going to flake out on him. I see him before he sees me. I guess he managed to set up the tent—a flappy blue structure sways in the wind. His back is turned to me and he's hunched over the fire pit, lighting a match. His muscles flexing with each move he made.
As I step up behind him, I watch the two old logs burst into flames. The fire crackles and I take a seat on the ground next to him.
"Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Huh?"
"I thought you wandered off to find something."
"Nope." I cross my legs to sit Indian style on the grass. "Everything's still the same."
"Glad to hear it." He rubs his hands together before he stands up . "Are you hungry?"
I shrug, which he interprets as yes. He walks over to the cooler and pulls out the hot dogs his mom packed for us. They're shoved together in a plastic bag, looking sad and slimy. He hands me the bag and then grabs some steel skewers from his backpack.
I slide one of the hot dogs onto the skewer and watch the metal point poke through the hot dog's casing. I hover my skewer over the flames and Harry does the same. I turn it over every so often, but to be honest, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. My family doesn't camp.
"I think it's done," Harry says, nodding at my hot dog.
"Oh." I pull it away from the flame.
"I forgot to pick up the buns. My mom would be horrified." He gives me a sheepish grin as he plops back down on the ground. He folds his legs up to his chest and pulls the hot dog off the skewer, repeatedly blowing on it.
I do my best to imitate him, except I'm pretty sure I look like a five-year-old that can't manage to successfully blow out her birthday candles. I tear off a piece of my hot dog and it burns my fingertips. I shove it in my mouth and chew. There's a charred taste on the outside, but it's cold on the inside. I manage to swallow it.
He puts his hot dog down on a piece of newspaper and gets up and grabs two plastic cups. He unscrews the cap off one of the bottles of wine. The bottle sways in his hand as he says, "You're right. We are being classy. Hot dogs and wine."
I know he's teasing, but it's my first time drinking wine and I can't help but be a little bit excited. A month ago, I would've told you there was nothing in the world left to be excited about. Who knew something as silly as wine would do the trick? I try to maintain a neutral facial expression so I don't give myself away. He pours us each a glass and then hands me mine.
"Thanks." I put the glass down beside me and barely manage to balance my half-cooked hot dog. I guess the only thing worse than a half-cooked hot dog would be a half-cooked hot dog complete with a dusting of dirt.
"We probably should have gotten napkins," he says in between chews.
"Probably."
He finishes his hot dog quickly. Maybe his was undercooked too. I force myself to gulp the rest of mine down and then take a swig of wine. It's sour and I cringe.
He laughs. "Not much of a drinker?"
"Guess not."
He holds his plastic cup out toward mine. "To Taylor, my Suicide Partner."
I clink my cup against his. "To not being a flake."
That really makes him smile and he chugs down the rest of his wine and then goes to pour himself another glass.
The sun is starting to set in the sky and I have no concept of what time it is. I think about pulling my cell phone out of my pocket and checking, but then I realize it doesn't matter. All that matters is this day feels so much shorter than most. The days with Taylor always feel the shortest.
I flip over onto my stomach and stretch out. Harry lies down beside me on his back, his eyes glued to the sky. "I'm sorry we weren't able to find your dad."
I slide my tongue over my teeth, tasting the wine's tart aftertaste. "Maybe that guy, Jacob, will call."
"Maybe." Harry puts his hand on my lower back. "But maybe he won't. Yoou'll be okay with that, right?"
I don't know the answer to his question. I guess I'll try to call the facility myself if Jacob doesn't call with information. But like I said, I just don't know. A few birds squawk at one another and take flight from a nearby tree. The fluttering of their wings startles me for a moment and I sit up. I would've thought the closer I got to death, the less on edge I'd be, the less afraid I'd be. It's turning out to be the opposite.
"I'm sorry," he says, taking his hand off my back and tucking it in the pocket of his pants.
"No," I say. "It wasn't you."
He raises his eyebrow. "The birds scared you?"
I want to tell him that everything scares me now. But I stay silent and let him ramble on about how birds are harmless. He is drinking more and more wine and I am trying to keep up, but my head is dizzy and my eyelids are starting to feel heavy.
I roll over on my side to face him. The fire is still going strong and the tendrils of smoke cast shadows over his cheekbones. He's been chugging the wine in silence and I know I should say something that will make him understand how I feel, but I'm already on rocky ground and I don't want to make it even worse.
"I'm scared too, you know," he finally says. I can smell the wine on his breath as he lifts his face, moving it closer to mine. "But also excited."
I squeeze my eyes shut. My brain feels like it's swimming. "Have you ever heard of Einstein's theory of relativity?"
He takes another long sip. "There you go again with science. You're a real nerd, aren't you?"
"I think to be a nerd you have to be smart."
He draws his eyebrows together. "You seem pretty smart." I wink at him. "I put on a good act." I sit up and pour myself a little more wine.
"So tell me about it."
"The theory?" The wine has started to taste less sour. I don't know if that's a sign I'm getting used to it or a sign that my taste buds are drunk. I don't even know if taste buds can get drunk.
"Yeah, Einstein's theory. Your nerdy theory." His words are sloppy and blurred together. It'd be kind of cute if it wasn't also kind of scary.
"You know he had two theories, right? The special theory of relativity and the general theory of relativity."
Harry shakes his head. "I don't know shit about Einstein. And honestly, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't really care about the guy."
"I make you care about Einstein?" I bite on the rim of my plastic cup.
He gives me his half-moon smile, all crooked and sweet. "I can't help but care about the things you care about. I feel like we're kind of connected in that way now."
I find myself smiling. My cheek muscles feel different—they're like a room that hasn't seen light in years that suddenly had all the blinds pulled open and the sun is beaming in at full volume. And I can't help myself, my smile keeps stretching, wider and wider. That's the nicest thing Harry has ever said to me. Hell, that's the nicest thing I can remember anyone ever saying to me in the last three years.
"I made you happy," he says. His words come out heavy and slow.
"Yeah, you made me happy."
He shakes his head and closes his eyes. He's swaying back and forth like one of those hula dancers that people put on their dashboards.
"What?" I say, and reach over to tap his shoulder.
"I can't make you happy. We can't let each other make each other happy."
I pause, decoding his sloppy, slurred sentence. I lean in toward him. "Would that be so bad?"
He snaps his eyes open. They're bright and glossy, and at the same time, light and watery. "That would ruin everything."
It takes me a second to find my grounding again. I pick up a twig and start dragging it across the grass. "But you told me at the carnival that when I talked about science, it made you happy and maybe . . ."
He raises his hand in the air, signaling for me to stop talking. "It doesn't matter." He points at me and then back at him. "This can't matter. This is temporary." His eyes widen and I can see that red semicircles are forming around the bottom of them. Too much wine for Blurryface.
"Look, Taylor." He reaches out and squeezes both my hands in his. "I know this is confusing. We're in a strange and fucked-up position and we can't let ourselves get fooled by the situation."
I try to jerk my hands away from his, but he doesn't let go of them. His fingers dig into my knuckles. "The situation?"
"The fact that we're Suicide Partners. We have this intimacy and, yeah, sure, we have chemistry."
"Chemistry?" I can't help but laugh.
"Okay. I'll leave the science to you."
He brushes a strand of hair from my face. "We do have chemistry," he says.
I give him another smile. That's two. I can't develop a smiling habit. I wouldn't even recognize myself if I became someone who smiles voluntarily. "I guess we do." I take a breath and notice that the air has changed flavor from campfire smoke to sweet vanilla and there's a soft sound in my head that I don't quite recognize but reminds me of pennies being tossed into a fountain. The pitter-patter of wishes, desperate wishes.
He nuzzles his head into my neck and I try to relax my body and pretend like that's perfectly normal. Then he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me down to the ground with him. We lie there in the darkness, in silence, a few feet from the tent, my spine against his stomach, his hands on my sides. I've never been so aware that I am made up of bones and skin, and I can practically feel my bones inching closer to the surface of my skin, aching to get even closer to his.
Out of nowhere, he whispers, "But this can't change anything."
I squirm so I can press myself even closer to him. I can feel his beating heart—it is wildly alive. There's a burning in the pit of my stomach and it feels nothing like the black slug chomping away at my happiness. There's a light fizziness where there used to be unbearable heaviness, and I wonder if my potential energy is changing. I imagine graphing the whole process like a scientist would chart her lab experiment. My whole life is starting to seem like an experiment.
"Taylor," he says as he holds me tight, his lips brushing against my hair. "You know this can't change anything, right? This type of happiness is fake, it's fleeting. We need to remember why we want to die. I need to remember Jade. And you need to remember your reasons."
My reasons. That sounds so vague. But I guess I haven't really told him my reasons, since I'm terrified of how he'd react if he figured out who my dad is. And maybe that's why I haven't told him. Not because I'm scared that he won't want to die with me anymore, but because I'm terrified that he'll still want me to die. That he'll agree that I should die.
I guess he's right: I am a flake. But maybe meeting Harry has helped me to understand myself better. Yes, I'm broken. And yes, he's broken. But the more we talk about it, the more we share our sadness, the more I start to believe that there could be a chance to fix us, a chance that we could save each other.
Everything used to seem so final, inevitable, predestined. But now I'm starting to believe that life may have more surprises in store than I ever realized. Maybe it's all relative, not just light and time like Einstein theorized, but everything. Like life can seem awful and unfixable until the universe shifts a little and the observation point is altered, and then suddenly, everything seems more bearable.
"You know?" he presses. "Us doing whatever we're doing, becoming whatever we're becoming, it doesn't change anything. It can't." His actions don't match his words, though, because as he's talking, he's pulling me closer.

"I know," I whisper.
But deep down, what I know is this: Everything has changed.