Where She Went (If I Stay#2)

153 Pages·2011·0.68 MB·English

by  Gayle Forman

001

Table of Contents

Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication

ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE

Acknowledgements
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business
establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Gayle Forman, Inc.

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party websites or their content.

Epigraph: Copyright © 1931, 1958 by Edna St. Vincent Millay and Norma Millay Ellis. Reprinted with
permission of Elizabeth Barnett, The Millay Society.

eISBN : 978-1-101-47632-1
2. Emotional problems—Fiction. 3. Rock music—Fiction. 4.Violoncello—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—
Fiction.] I.Title. PZ7.F75876Wh 2011 [Fic]--dc22 2010013474

Published in the United States by Dutton Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 www.penguin.com/youngreaders

http://us.penguingroup.com
FOR MY PARENTS :
for saying I can.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.

Excerpt from “Love is not all:
it is not meat nor drink.”

BY EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY
ONE
Every morning I wake up and I tell myself this: It’s just one day, one twenty-
four-hour period to get yourself through. I don’t know when exactly I started
giving myself this daily pep talk—or why. It sounds like a twelve-step mantra
and I’m not in Anything Anonymous, though to read some of the crap they write
about me, you’d think I should be. I have the kind of life a lot of people would
probably sell a kidney to just experience a bit of. But still, I find the need to
remind myself of the temporariness of a day, to reassure myself that I got
through yesterday, I’ll get through today.
This morning, after my daily prodding, I glance at the minimalist digital clock
on the hotel nightstand. It reads 11:47, positively crack-of-dawn for me. But the
front desk has already rang with two wake-up calls, followed by a polite-but-
firm buzz from our manager, Aldous. Today might be just one day, but it’s
packed.
I’m due at the studio to lay down a few final guitar tracks for some Internet-
only version of the first single of our just-released album. Such a gimmick. Same
song, new guitar track, some vocal effects, pay an extra buck for it. “These days,
you’ve gotta milk a dollar out of every dime,” the suits at the label are so fond of
reminding us.
After the studio, I have a lunch interview with some reporter from Shuffle.
Those two events are kinda like the bookends of what my life has become:
making the music, which I like, and talking about making the music, which I
loathe. But they’re flip sides of the same coin. When Aldous calls a second time
I finally kick off the duvet and grab the prescription bottle from the side table.
It’s some anti-anxiety thing I’m supposed to take when I’m feeling jittery.
Jittery is how I normally feel. Jittery I’ve gotten used to. But ever since we
kicked off our tour with three shows at Madison Square Garden, I’ve been
feeling something else. Like I’m about to be sucked into something powerful
and painful. Vortexy.
Is that even a word? I ask myself.
You’re talking to yourself, so who the hell cares? I reply, popping a couple of
pills. I pull on some boxers, and go to the door of my room, where a pot of
coffee is already waiting. It’s been left there by a hotel employee, undoubtedly