The Serpent King

Dill decides to be brave enough to tell his mom about college, and that he got financial aid. His mother reacts with disapproving silence, and she leaves the room, praying for Dill.

Lydia and Dill arrange for the upcoming prom, following Dill’s idea for “Pathetic Prom. We set out to intentionally have the most pathetic prom night imaginable” (328). They both dress in costume: Dill in his dad’s suit, and Lydia in a “gaudy, red-sequined, 1980s vintage prom dress” (329); she puts on crazy make-up and sports a hilarious hairdo, and only part of her body is spray-tanned. They go to Cracker Barrel, even though Dill likes the diner, because “We’re so pathetic that we can’t even do Pathetic Prom right” (330). As they order a crazy meal, they tear up over Travis, whom they both miss. 

Lydia has arranged a “creaking, rusty, thrift-store” (335) bicycle to get them to the prom. As they ride, they both decide they will miss their town, even though they hated it. Dill thinks about Travis “lying alone under the ground, in the dark, while Lydia and I live and move forward and laugh” (337). 

Dill and Lydia cause a commotion as they appear in front of the gymnasium on their bicycle. In the darkened gym they hear “the scornful whispers and muttering and feel the stares” (339). As school bully Tyson and his girlfriend Madison make fun of Lydia, Dill steps in, saying, “‘Do you guys not get it? You can’t hurt us anymore. You can’t do anything to us’” (340). Disregarding their provocations—they mention Travis’s death—Dill and Lydia step out onto the empty dance floor and dance. 

As they ride back to Lydia’s house, Dill tells Lydia he will miss their time together. They go to her backyard, where Lydia turns on the water sprinklers and gets both herself and Dill all wet. They lay on the grass to watch the stars, and talk and laugh. Lydia nestles into Dill’s embrace, and he tells himself to “just accept this gift, this moment, after all that life has taken from you” (345). While Lydia kisses his neck, Dill realizes “She’s it. She’s everything. She’s the standard by which I’ll judge beauty for the rest of my life” (345). 

In early June, Dill and Lydia sit beside Travis’s grave, as tomorrow Lydia will leave town to start her internship at Chic with Dahlia’s mom. She sneaks a glance at Dill; “Her heart ached with the knowledge that every time it beat, it was counting away another second to her leaving and not seeing him anymore” (349). They sit closer to each other, both saying they do not regret a single thing they have done together. Lydia says her goodbyes to Travis, feeling guilty for leaving him behind, as does Dill. 

Lydia drives Dill home, and they sing along to her favorite song, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division, which Dill feels is “a more acceptable way of screaming in agony, which was what he wanted to do” (353). In front of his house, they both break down in tears, saying how much they will miss each other. Dill whispers in Lydia’s ear that he loves her. She kisses him but stays silent.

Their lips locked, Lydia feels that “a stillness came over her, a surrender, like she was falling from a great height but would never hit the ground” (354). 

After they break the kiss, Dill lets himself feel the pain of letting Lydia go: “He wanted to be destroyed this way. He welcomed it” (355). He goes to the house and gets her a CD with his songs, including the one he wrote for her. After she leaves, he tries to go into the house, but cannot, because “only the expanse of the indifferent, infinite starry sky could contain his ferocious, surging hurt” (356).

On her ride to New York, Lydia pulls into a truck stop in Virginia. A wave of missing Dill hits her hard, and “she crumbled. Right in the middle of the aisle” (359). She tells the worried cashier that she wished she had said to someone that she loved him. The cashier, “a careworn woman in her 0s” (359), comforts her and gives her a teddy bear to hug. 

In prison, Dill visits his dad, who asks him to justify his decision to go to college, saying, “You are abandoning your mother” (362). Dill knows his father is trying to provoke his anger, so he refuses to oblige, telling his father that he feels sorry for him. This visit to the prison is Dill’s last. 

As he prepares to leave for school, Dill works both for Lydia’s father and at the grocer’s so he can leave his mom some money. Meanwhile, Lydia expands her Dollywould site with the help of Dahlia and Chloe. The artist Laydee, whom Lydia interviewed, has heard Dill’s songs, and her manager contacts him to buy one. 

On the day of his departure, as he waits for Dr. Blankenship, who will drive him to college, Dill’s mom tells him that this is not God’s plan for him: “Your place is here. Working hard, living simply. Living in a godly way” (365). Dill answers that he believes there are more paths than one, and that “this is the spirit of God moving in me. This is the sign of my faith. I did this to save myself” (366). When he asks his mother if she is proud of him, she answers she does not know, although he “expected an outright no” (367). He says he loves her and hugs her, but she does not return his hug. Dill takes all his belongings and leaves his home.