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BEFORE

The Middle of Nowhere

There were only two kinds of people in our town “The stupid and the stuck,” hbors “The ones who are bound to stay or too duo Everyone else finds a way out” There was no question which one he was, but I’d never had the courage to ask why My father was a writer, and we lived in Gatlin, South Carolina, because the Wates always had, since ht and died on the other side of the Santee River during the Civil War

Only folks down here didn’t call it the Civil War Everyone under the age of sixty called it the War Between the States, while everyone over sixty called it the War of Northern Aggression, as if somehow the North had baited the South into war over a bad bale of cotton Everyone, that is, except my family We called it the Civil War

Just another reason I couldn’t wait to get out of here

Gatlin wasn’t like the small towns you saw in the o We were too far from Charleston to have a Starbucks or a McDonald’s All we had was a Dar-ee Keen, since the Gentrys were too cheap to buy all new letters when they bought the Dairy King The library still had a card catalog, the high school still had chalkboards, and our community pool was Lake Moultrie, warm broater and all You could see a movie at the Cineplex about the same time it came out on DVD, but you had to hitch a ride over to Sue The shops were on Main, the good houses were on River, and everyone else lived south of Route 9, where the paverated into chunky concrete stubble—terrible for walking, but perfect for throwing at angry possums, the meanest animals alive You never saw that in the movies

Gatlin wasn’t a cohbors kept watch fro in plain sight But there was no point Nothing ever changed Tomorroould be the first day of school, h, and I already knew everything that was going to happen—where I would sit, who I would talk to, the jokes, the girls, ould park where

There were no surprises in Gatlin County We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere

At least, that’s what I thought, when I closed hterhouse-Five, clicked off ht of summer

Turns out, I couldn’t have been

There was a curse

There was a girl

And in the end, there was a grave

I never even saw it co

902

Dream On

Falling

I was free falling, tuh the air

“Ethan!”

She called to me, and just the sound of her voice made my heart race

“Help me!”