Page 89 of The Serpent King

Lydia turned, planted her elbows on Dill’s chest, and rested her chin on her crossed arms. “So you know from now on, ‘witnessing for Jesus’ is going to be our euphemism for making out, right?” From now on???

“Yep.”

“Just wanted to get that out of the way.”

“Okay.”

“So let’s just review the last twenty-four hours. One, you did not kill yourself. Two, you applied for college. Three, we made out. Those are three, like, really good things.”

“The only thing that would be better is if I became a famous musician too.”

“Did I not tell you that every single one of your videos has over a hundred thousand views now?”

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. You have it all, Dillard Early.”

“Except like a TV and a dad who’s not in prison.”

“Touché. So what do we do now? Where do we go from here?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t thought that far ahead.” Dill reached over and stroked her cheek.

“Should we make out some more?”

“Probably. Yes.”

So they did.

“This complicates things,” Lydia said when they were done.

“Our lives were pretty complicated.”

“Yeah, but this further complicates our complicated lives.”

“Yeah. I know.”

There were rules, explicit and implicit. Mostly Lydia’s.

Explicit: they kept things a secret. They didn’t need hassling from Dill’s mom or classmates. Also, it helped Lydia promote Dearly’s music on her blog—so that she didn’t look like she was plugging her own boyfriend. Closely related to this was a strict rule against public displays of affection. And referring to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend.

Implicit: no losing themselves too completely. They were still going their separate ways in a couple months. They didn’t forget.

Dill began his long, slow climb out of the abyss. He had good days and bad days. He quit his job at Floyd’s Foods and Dr. Blankenship hired him to work twenty hours a week filing and cleaning his office. He made more money (which mollified his mother), and better yet, all of Dr. Blankenship’s employees, even the part-timers, were on the group health plan. Dill finally had health insurance and was able to see a real therapist and get on a good antidepressant medication. Those things helped a lot. His music started to come back, bit by bit. The good days began to outnumber the bad.

And then one warm day in late April, Dill came home from school to find an acceptance letter from MTSU. He called Lydia, who turned her car around and insisted they make an immediate random road trip to the MTSU campus so that Dill could see where he’d be studying.

Lydia queued up a mix for the drive. “So when are you going to tell your mom you got into college?”

“What day is the day before fall semester starts at MTSU? Then.”

“I recommend doing so sooner, since, you know, she’s your mom.”

“We’ll see.”