The Never List

when I started crying, but soon enough my own hands were on my face, wiping away my tears and snot and spit. I wondered, despairingly, what would kill me first, dehydration or lack of air. But in that reflection, I noticed there was nolack of air. I could breathe just fine. There must be some small opening somewhere in that box.
    I pulled back from my corner, careful not to tangle the strands of dry dead hair from Jennifer’s corpse in with my own. I noticed that the box had been built directly into the side of the barn. And then I looked more closely and saw that something had been happening in that building. That maybe for years before me, somehow anticipating my presence, I felt, hundreds of tiny creatures had been unwittingly working to save my life.
    The edge of the wall, the edge that met the outermost corner of the barn, was damp and chewed. Termites, carpenter ants, powderpost beetles—something had weakened the board. I pried at it. It was loose. I could almost break it away, but this time, I thought, this time I would not be so impetuous. I would not live in regret but would wait until morning, to see if he left, since it would have been his normal day for teaching. I was lying there in the darkness, smelling the decay of the body, the dampness of the earth, and all but praying to those bugs, those miraculous bugs, thanking them for living, for desiring the taste of wood. I could have kissed them in my delirium. But I waited.
    The next day I heard the door of the house open, and eventually steps coming into the barn. He was checking on me. At first I held as still as possible, hoping he would think I had already died of sheer fright. He banged hard on the top of the box to stir me. I decided I didn’t want him to investigate further, so I moved slightly to show I was there. He gave the box another thump with his knuckles and walked away. I heard his car start and pull off down the driveway. His schedule never varied—I knew he wouldn’t be back for four days, but also that I couldn’t live that long without water. My throat was parched already. The delicate moistness of the earth under me was tantalizing.
    For hours I dug my fingers into the crevices of the wood andtried with all my remaining strength to pry it off. After what must have been a few hours, I managed to break off the end of one board, and I could see an open field behind the barn and, farther on, the woods behind it. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, that vista, and it was calling me to freedom.
    I hit the board harder and harder with my fists, with my head, and in my frustration opened a cut just above my eye. In desperation, I tasted the blood, hoping it would quench my thirst.
    The board was wedged in tightly, and I thought all my efforts might be of no use. I thought maybe I should give up, curl up on the ground with Jennifer, and meet her in whatever cellar afterlife we could conjure. But then I thought how, if I did that, my parents would never know what happened, I could never explain what Jennifer went through, and I could never bring justice to Jack Derber. That last point drove me on.
    Eventually, I forced enough of the board free almost to squeeze my shoulders through the open space, but not quite enough. I knew I needed to turn around somehow in the box, so my feet could reach the top of the board, and I could use the strength of my legs to push it out. The box was just wide enough for the two of us, so I practically had to embrace Jennifer’s corpse, which I had pushed to the far side of the box.
    The stench was overwhelming, but I could have stomached that. I hated more the stiffness of her body and the coldness of her skin. I was crying, but no tears would fall. There was no water left in any pore of my body.
    Finally facing the other way, I pulled my legs up underneath me, mustered all the force that remained in my pathetic form, and shoved my feet down again and again, pounding at the board, my knees shaking the corpse to the side, as we moved together in some kind of strange death dance.
    It lasted for what seemed like forever, and then the board cameloose entirely. Just like that. My breath came faster. I clenched my fists and closed my eyes, bracing myself to wriggle through the opening. It was a wide board, but I only just fit underneath it. I thanked Jack out loud for keeping me emaciated, and I slid under and out into the open air.
    I turned around and carefully replaced the board in its old spot as