Page 15 of Survive the Night

“Terminator,” Josh says. “And quit giving me the obvious ones. I’m not as movie illiterate as you think.”

“Fine.” She pauses, thinking. “ ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.’ ”

“That would beJaws,” Josh says, adding a smug “I’ve seen that movie twice.”

“Twice?” Charlie says with mock surprise.

“And how many times have you seen it, Siskel and Ebert?”

“Twenty.”

Josh lets out a low whistle. “Why would you watch the same movie twenty times?”

“It’s a masterpiece,” Charlie says. “The real question is whywouldn’tyou watch it twenty times?”

“Because life is too short.”

That had been another of Maddy’s favorite phrases, used whenever she needed to cajole Charlie into doing something she didn’t want to do.Life is too short tonotgo to this party, she’d say. So Charlie would go and Maddy would get lost in the crowd, and more often than not, Charlie would wind up back in their dorm room, watching movies.

“I want to give you a quote,” Josh says.

“I’ll guarantee I’ll guess it.”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.” Josh clears his throat. “ ‘We all go a little mad sometimes.’ ”

The way Josh says it hits Charlie like electricity. A tiny zap at the base of her spine. She’s heard that line quoted a thousand times before, and always with too much emphasis, too much over-the-top creepiness. But Josh delivers the line exactly the way Anthony Perkins did—calm, matter-of-fact, like it’s no big deal to admit madness.

“Did I stump you?” Josh says.

“Psycho,” Charlie replies. “Alfred Hitchcock. Nineteen sixty.”

“How many times have you seen that one?”

“Too many to count.”

It had been among Charlie’s favorite Hitchcock films, watched as frequently asRear WindowandVertigoandNorth by Northwest. She hasn’t seen it since Maddy’s murder, and might not do so ever again. She’s not sure she can handle the shower scene and its frenzied cuts and screeching violins, even though she knows the blood was chocolate sauce and the stabbing sounds were casaba melons and that Hitch never once showed a blade piercing flesh. None of that matters. Not when she thinks about Maddy’s fate.

“You seem to love your major,” Josh says.

“I do.”

“Then why are you dropping out of school?”

“Who says I’m dropping out?” Charlie says, irritated. At Josh for being so presumptuous. At herself for being so transparent.

“Those suitcases and box in the trunk. No one packs that much just to go home for a short visit. Especially on a Tuesday in the middle of the semester. That tells me there’s a story behind all this.”

“There is,” Charlie says, her irritation growing. “And it’s none of your business.”

“But you are dropping out, right?” Josh says. “I haven’t heard you deny it.”

Charlie slumps in her seat and looks out the window, which hasfogged up thanks to the car’s heater and her incessant movie talk. She runs a finger along the glass, creating a clear streak.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she says. “Taking a break, I guess.”

“College life too much for you?”

“No.” Charlie pauses, changes her answer. “Yes.”

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