Excerpt from Four for the Road by K J. Reilly, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

And we all know what that means.

Because if you are living a life that no longer has purpose it tends to end in a hurry.

Then Peter Pan uses her gentle mom voice to get a couple more people to talk and all of them still have reasons to live like book groups and fishing trips and Labrador retrievers and grandchildren and when they're finished talking Peter Pan says, "We're done for tonight," and everyone starts grabbing their things and there are a few coughs and the sound of chairs being pushed back but mostly it's quiet. Two of the really old people who have aluminum walkers for legs and the crooked backs of old bent trees hobble to the snack table and stuff some cookies into their pockets, and then the rest of the group shuffles to the door all gangly and hunched over like their limbs are the branches of the weeping willows in the park at the end of my street. I stand up with a jolt and rush to the elevator trying not to knock anyone over on my way out and trying not to think about me or my mom, or about Henry being dead.

I smash the down button on the elevator and when the doors slide open I step inside and stare at my sneakers grateful that the car is empty because at this point even saying hello to someone would be too hard.

They might smile or say hi and I wouldn't be able to say hi back because what would be the point?

I'm just the weird kid who never smiles 'cause his mom died twelve months three weeks one day seven hours and sixteen minutes ago.

Excerpted from Four for the Road by K J. Reilly. Copyright © 2022 by K J. Reilly. Excerpted by permission of Atheneum Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.