Visiting her dying grandmother in hospital is not what seventeen-year-old Emily wants to be doing for New Year's Eve, but it's not like she has anything else to do. Leaving the hospital, she meets a teen-aged boy named Alex, who is also leaving. When he invites her to go for a burger with him and his sister, she goes along. What Emily doesn't know is that Alex, too, is dying, their meeting is not a coincidence, and she is in for a New Year's Eve unlike any other.
Amy Bright's debut novel is the moving story of three kids propelled toward a surprising future by family secrets that have spanned generations.
Sometimes I want to hit Alex in the shoulder like I used to. With my thumb over my knuckles the way they taught us in gym class. I know the place where you can hit people that's sort of in between the muscles.
It really hurts.
Stuff like that's a game because he's my brother. I mean, I hit him now and then maybe at dinner he says something at the table like, “Hey Mom and Dad, Lucy didn't go to school today” and then we'll be even until next time.
We kind of lost that. It's gone because of the bruises and the nosebleeds that he gets when something happens like normal only his body thinks he's dying. So I stick out my tongue instead. Alex looks at the TV and loses his smile because he knows it's missing, our usual back and forth.
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