Page 68 of The Serpent King

“Yeah, fine.” Travis sounded nonchalant. But not too nonchalant.

If he was lying, he was doing a better job of it than when he lied about Amelia. “Gotcha. What are you and Dill up to tonight?”

“Dill’s working; I’m out selling firewood,” Travis said.

“Are you serious? You’re handwriting stories and selling firewood? Could I maybe show you a flashlight and have you worship me as a god?”

“I finally inherited the firewood sales. Lamar, a guy I work with, did it for years. We get the scraps of lumber we can’t sell and bundle them and sell them as firewood. But I guess he got tired of doing it. It makes me extra money to save for a new laptop and writing classes.”

Lydia looked out the window and saw Travis’s truck laden with firewood.

“Dad!” she called. “Come buy some of Travis’s dumb firewood.”

Dr. Blankenship came padding to the door in slippers, holding his wallet. “Travis! Hello.”

“Hi, Dr. Blankenship.”

“I take it you’re still working at the lumberyard?”

“Yessir. Most likely’ll keep doing that after I graduate. In the last few years, business has kind of slowed down, so I’m one of the only employees left.”

“You enjoy it?”

“Yessir. I like the smell of cut wood and it gives me time to think.”

“Do something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,” Dr. Blankenship said.

“I didn’t tell Lydia to tell you to come buy my wood, by the way,” Travis said.

“Oh, I know that. If you’d told her to tell me, she’d have said no.”

He bought half of Travis’s supply.

As Travis left, it occurred to Lydia that there was something different of late in his smile, with its two fake front teeth. Triumphant. Like he had forded a raging river and come to the other side. Or survived some great battle. He shone bright, as if burned clean by fire.

A couple hours after Travis left, Lydia’s phone buzzed.

Sitting here with fat envelope from NYU, Dahlia texted.

OMG open it.

A few minutes later, her phone buzzed again. A photo of an NYU acceptance letter.

CONGRATS!!!!!!!

I’m dying here. You have to tell me when you get yours.

“Hey, Mom?” Lydia called downstairs. “Did the mail come yet today?”

“The flag is down.”

Lydia jumped down the stairs, four at a time. She ran outside barefoot, her feet freezing on the ice-cold pavement. She yanked open the mailbox door. Letters. She jammed her hand in so hard to get them that she got a paper cut. She couldn’t breathe.

Junk mail. Junk mail. Something for her mom. Something for her mom. Something for her dad. Junk mail. Junk mail. NYU.

Literally the last item in the stack. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and tore. She almost couldn’t bring herself to read it. But she did.

Dear Lydia,