Survive the Night

by Riley Sager

“I didn’t want to be alone. Is that a good enough answer for you? My dad had a stroke, and I felt helpless and sad and didn’t want to drive to Ohio with nothing but all those bad thoughts to keep me company. So I put on this stupid sweatshirt, went to the ride board, and looked for someone to ride with me.”

“Shit,” the woman says. “I thought it was empty.”

Why the fuck what she checking thr stalls like a murderer

“Because this is a rest stop late at night and I’m alone and I’m not an idiot.”

Oh lol

the bathroom door opens again and in saunters Maddy. “Hello, darling,” she says.

Im scared

“If you ask me,” she says, “he should be worried about you getting back in that car. Whatever shit you’ve been drinking, I suggest switching to water. Or coffee.”

:/

Curiosity made him do it. He wanted to see Charlie’s reaction when she figured it out.

I threw my kindle oh my god i knew it

plaza, he decided to turn the stereo back on, restart the song, and pretend everything in the previous ten minutes—Twenty Questions, the mention of the tooth, those tense taps on the brakes when that damn state trooper came up behind them—hadn’t really happened.

Oh. My. God.

He slides it out of its plastic sleeve, revealing another license behind it. Pennsylvania. Jake Collins.

Oh my god i feel insane rn

Charlie was too special to ignore.

How cutesy. ur gf finna die bruh

She also knows it’s a lie. Just like thinking that no one will believe her if she tried to get help. Or that Josh will charm and fib his way out of it. Or that he has no intention of leaving without her, despite flat-out stating he does.

Shs gomn so bAd

doesn’t want to get away from Josh. Not just yet.

Huh

It took Maddy being killed for her to understand the brutal truth that there are men out there who won’t hesitate to hurt women.

Smh

she’d read about kidnap victims who stayed with their captors long after they could have escaped. Stockholm syndrome.

Dont play w me hoe

Josh chuckles at that. When he looks Charlie’s way, it’s with what she can only discern as admiration.

They should kith a little

She thought it would go in easier than it does. In the movies, knives slide in smoothly, like a blade through butter. The truth is that it takes force. Teeth-gritting, grunting force to push it through Josh’s sweatshirt, then his flesh, then deeper still, into places Charlie doesn’t want to think about. She

I GASPEDDDDDDDD

can’t,” Josh says. “You already killed me.” Charlie looks down at her hands. One grips a pair of handcuffs. The other is smeared with blood. On the other side of the car, Josh chokes out her name. “Charlie.”

I dont know whts happening owhatttttt

“Found you,” she says.

That is terrifying boitch is this a scary movie

Teeth.

I literally teared up idek what to say

“I thought I was going to kill you that night,” Robbie says. “Sitting with you at the library, then the diner, then walking you home. The whole time I kept thinking about what it was going to feel like to kill you.”

um um um um

when what you really should have done is thanked her for being by

your side and understanding you and loving you for who you are.

She’s Thelma and Louise, kicking up dirt in a final fuck-you as they choose freedom over life.

I’ll probably still be here.” Josh touches his side. “And when you do, maybe we can, I don’t know, go see a movie or something.”

Hehehe

That’s the tricky thing about movies. They can be wonderful and beautiful and amazing. But they’re not like life, which is wonderful, beautiful, and amazing in a different way.

But real life—” Charlie exhales a sigh of contentment as she reaches for her husband’s hand. “Real life is so much better.”

the ending confused me idk what was real