Read All the Bright Places for Free Online Page A

five a.m. And
died.
No offense to the dead, but soccer is a really stupid thing to stay awake for
.
    Mom has stopped eating to study my face. When she does pay attention, which isn’t often, she tries hard to be understanding about my “sadness,” just like she tries hard to bepatient when Kate stays out all night and Decca spends time in the principal’s office. My mother blames our bad behavior on the divorce and my dad. She says we just need time to work through it.
    Less sarcastically, I add, “It was okay. Uneventful. Boring. Typical.” We move on to easier topics, like the house my mother is trying to sell for her clients and the weather.
    When dinner is over, Mom lays a hand on my arm, fingertips barely touching the skin, and says, “Isn’t it nice to have your brother back, Decca?” She says it as if I’m in danger of disappearing again, right in front of their eyes. The slightly blaming note in her voice makes me cringe, and I get the urge to go back to my room again and stay there. Even though she tries to forgive my sadness, she wants to count on me as man of the house, and even though she thinks I was in school for most of that four-almost-five-week period, I did miss a lot of family dinners. She takes her fingers back and then we’re free, which is exactly how we act, the three of us running off in three different directions.
    Around ten o’clock, after everyone else has gone to bed and Kate still isn’t home, I turn on the computer again and check my Facebook account.
    Violet Markey accepted your friend request, it says.
    And now we are friends.
    I want to shout and jog around the house, maybe climb up onto the roof and spread my arms wide but not jump off, not even think about it. But instead I hunch closer to the screen and browse through her photos—Violet smiling with two peoplewho must be her parents, Violet smiling with friends, Violet smiling at a pep rally, Violet smiling cheek to cheek with another girl, Violet smiling all alone.
    I remember the picture of Violet and the girl from the newspaper. This is her sister, Eleanor. She wears the same clunky glasses Violet had on today.
    Suddenly a message appears in my inbox.
    Violet: You ambushed me. In front of everyone.
    Me: Would you have worked with me if I hadn’t?
    Violet: I would have gotten out of it so I didn’t have to do it to begin with. Why do you want me to do this project with you anyway?
    Me: Because our mountain is waiting.
    Violet: What’s that supposed to mean?
    Me: It means maybe you never dreamed of seeing Indiana, but, in addition to the fact that we’re required to do this for school, and I’ve volunteered—okay, ambushed—you into being my partner, here’s what I think: I think I’ve got a map in my car that wants to be used, and I think there are places we can go that need to be seen. Maybe no one else will ever visit them and appreciate them or take the time to think they’re important, but maybe even the smallest places mean something. And if not, maybe they can mean something to us. At the very least, by the time we leave, we know we will have seen it, this great state of ours. So come on. Let’s go. Let’s count for something. Let’s get off that ledge.
    When she doesn’t respond, I write: I’m here if you want to talk .
    Silence.
    I imagine Violet at home right now, on the other side of the computer, her perfect mouth with its perfect corners turned up,smiling at the screen, in spite of everything, no matter what.
Violet smiling
. With one eye on my computer, I pick up the guitar, start making up words, the tune not far behind.
    I’m still here, and I’m grateful, because otherwise I would be missing this. Sometimes it’s good to be awake.
    “So not today,” I sing. “Because she smiled at me.”

FINCH’S RULES FOR WANDERING
    1.  There are no rules, because life is made up of too many rules as it is.
    2.  But there are three “guidelines” (which sounds less rigid than