by Ginger Scott
“Your Uncle Jeff, he’s in Oklahoma. I’ll take care of the rest, represent you and make sure the right people know you aren’t running, that you’re with kin. You’re not the one in trouble here, Dustin.”
“It sure feels like I’m in trouble,” I respond.
I refold the paper and slip it into the pocket of my jeans. I’ve never met my uncle, or at least not when I was old enough to form a memory of it. Why would some man who worked really hard to put miles between him and his sister want anything to do with me?
“Two weeks. When I’m eighteen?” I reiterate. I meet his eyes briefly and he nods.
The silent agreement sits heavy at the table between us, and long minutes pass.
“You can’t tell Hannah,” he finally says, bringing the knife down completely and driving it through my heart. My eyes close on automatic.
“I understand,” I say. And as angry as I am, at her father, mine—the world—he’s right. Hannah will follow me. And I love her too much to let her.
Present…
Hannah wouldn’t leave my side all night. It’s half the reason I stayed outside in their driveway. I figured out there, her dad wouldn’t make her feel guilty for being with me. He owes me this time with her. I think he knows as much.
I carried her inside after she fell asleep curled in my lap, head against my chest. I lay her on this couch where I’ve sat for the last hour with her hair trailing over my thigh like satin ribbons. This is it. This is the last time I will ever get to see her angelic face, her soft pink lips, tiny and parted as she breathes. She’s so at peace like this, and it’s the way I want to remember her.
I can’t stay in this house for two weeks knowing everything I know. I’ll never survive it. I won’t be able to hold the secret. I’ll break because I’m weak and I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to leave this fucking town. I hate it here, yet it’s my entire heart. The reasons for my hate are all wrapped up with the reasons I need to go.
God damn you, Colt Bridges. You gave me this life and have done nothing but threaten me for as long as I’ve walked this path.
My phone in my palm, I hover over Hannah’s face and snap a quiet photo, locking her image away somewhere I can see it whenever I want. Whenever I need her.
I tossed around the idea of writing a letter, but really, how cruel would that be? She’d pick it apart, if her dad even let her have it. And Tommy. What about Tommy? He’s going to hate me, and for real this time. But he’ll be free of burden, free to go to college and live for his dreams, not mine. I can’t hold that against him anymore. If anything, I understand better. I want so much for him. For all of them.
I slip away from the sofa, holding my breath when Hannah stirs. I wait until her breathing falls back into its peaceful rhythm and slink my way into the laundry room, to take my last shower for probably the next few days.
The hot water hardens my resolve and hides my tears. I only grant myself a few. This chapter of my life has to close, and it needs to be a definitive finish.
Their dad was planning to get my car back for me, and he hoped he’d have it by my birthday, but I’ve come to terms with that too. My days in the Supra are done, which means I’m going to have to take a bus to Oklahoma. I won’t screw Mr. Judge over so much that I completely fall off the grid. I’ll go where I promised, and I’ll make sure Uncle Jeff communicates what he needs to. I can’t put leaving off. It has to happen now if it’s going to happen at all.
I rummage through the laundry room, taking the few things I recognize as mine that Mrs. Judge cleaned for me, along with a few shirts of Tommy’s that I’ve always kind of liked. I smirk as I bundle them all in a hoodie, wondering how long it will take him to realize they’re missing. Hannah’s yellow race shirt catches my eye and I grab that too, holding it to my face and breathing in the scent of lavender fabric softener and her. She bought this shirt in Tucson, the last time I raced there. I aged out the next day, and she got shirts for all of us to celebrate my birthday. Tommy’s became an oil rag when he outgrew it, and mine never fit but I felt too guilty to tell her.
I tuck her shirt in my back pocket, letting it hang, then run my gaze along the shelves in their storage closet in search of one of Mrs. Judge’s cloth shopping bags. I find one that’s plain and blue, something that won’t stick out or draw attention, and dump my things—along with the items I’m stealing—inside. I grab Mr. Judge’s key from the counter and duck outside through the back door, rounding the house to the driveway so I can grab the cash and the stupid whale book from his glove box. I pause, looking at the notepad, and decide to bring it in case I get the urge to write Hannah something I’ll probably never send. I’m going to have a lot of hours on a bus. I am going to need to somehow work out the trauma from this.
I laugh silently to myself. My high school counselor would be proud. She was always trying to get me to journal.
I put the key back where it belongs and cinch up my bundle after splitting the cash between my two pockets, my wallet, and the bag. If someone is going to mug me, I’ve at least got to make it hard.
I know this isn’t how Thomas Judge planned this. I don’t pretend he thought any of it would be okay. He knew it would be hard when he hatched this plan, but he also knew it would be necessary.
With a final stop at the end of the sofa, I kneel down and allow myself five more minutes of time with her. I won’t kiss her good-bye. I can’t afford to wake her up. I’m pushing things by stalling. When I feel the sting of tears, I get to my feet and nod, silently bolstering myself for all that comes next.
I head straight for the back door, deciding that’s the quietest route. Denying myself a glance over my shoulder, I stifle the sound of the door shutting by pulling it slowly and bracing it with my other hand. I slink against the walls of the house, avoiding the motion-sensing lights, and when my feet find the pavement of the road, I break into a slow jog, heading for the highway where I’ll hitch a ride into Phoenix.
Good-bye heart. Good-bye home. Take care of the Straights, and God watch over this girl.
25
My eyes blink open. The bright room startles me. It’s unfamiliar at first, all of it. I flail my arms around, tossing the knitted blanket to the floor as I realize where I am. I sit up in a flash when I do, my hands flattening on the cushions of the couch on either side of me. My hair is ratted and covering my eyes as I blow at it to clear my view.
“He’s gone,” Tommy says.
“What?” I grumble. I run my fingers through my hair, taming it into place. My brother is sitting on the arm of my dad’s recliner, and the front door is wide open. I point at it and Tommy glances over his shoulder.
“Yeah, he’s gone,” he repeats. “I guess he took off in the middle of the night. Dad’s pissed.”
My body rushes with adrenaline, my mouth waters, and I sprint to the back bathroom, pausing with my arm folded over my mouth as my feet feel the damp evidence left behind on the tile floor. Dustin took a shower in here, and it could not have been that long ago. I hunch over the toilet and heave out bile.
Tommy appears in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. I flip the lid of the toilet down and flush, laying my arms over the seat and resting my cheek on my arm as I blink at him, wide-eyed and terrified.
“What do you mean he’s gone?” It’s a stupid question, and leave it to my fucking brother to call me on it.
“Uh, he’s not here? Va-moose. Poof!” He snaps his fingers.
I stand and shove him out of my way, rushing to the driveway where my dad is closing the passenger side of his truck.
“What happened?” I blare out.
My father grumbles and presses his key fob, locking his truck as he marches past.
“Dad!” I shout, getting his attention. He spins on his heel, his open mouth snapping shut to stop himself from blurting out a knee-jerk answer that probably wasn’t going to be kind. He shakes his head instead.
“I don’t know, Hannah. I just . . .” His eyes move to th
e highway, and before he can stop me, I run inside, grab my keys and race back to my car. I’m peeling backward in my driveway when my brother slaps the hood of my car, causing me to punch the brakes and screech to a stop. He pulls the passenger door open and hops inside.
“I’m going with you,” he announces, buckling up. “It’s better if we’re both looking.”
I nod to him in panicky agreement. We tear down our street, ruling out everything we can think of. Tommy calls Dustin’s number over and over, every call going right to voicemail. My stomach feels tight again, but I don’t have time to throw up, so I swallow down the burn and stress bubbling up my esophagus.
“Why would he take off? Where would he go?” I keep asking these same questions, over and over, mile after mile, and my brother is kind enough not to answer and not to stop me from asking them.
We barrel into the gas station, cruise by Dustin’s trailer, the entire park now roped off with police tape. We zoom through the center of town, to the Straights, which are empty and desolate in the bright light of day.
School. Restaurants. The grocery store, the small urgent care, Earl’s garage—each place comes up empty. His car is still in the impound lot, both doors torn apart from whatever the police did to it. He has nothing—nobody.
My heart sinks with each passing minute, and as those minutes turn into hours, my grasp on hope falters. My parents call my phone, but I send every attempt to voicemail. Finally, Tommy answers on his phone and stares at me through their one-sided conversation.
“Yeah.”
“We did.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
“She is.”
He hangs up, tosses his phone in the cup holder, and reaches forward, gripping at my dashboard before letting out a monstrous growl. The sound of my brother breaking stops my heart, and I pull to the side of the roadway. The rush of cars heading north for the weekend whizzes by us, the wind from eighteen-wheelers shaking my small vehicle as they roar past.
“Dad wants us to come home,” my brother finally says.
“No,” I blurt out.
He nods.
“Okay.”
We sit in silence, not even my radio on to fill the space. Every engine that rumbles by makes me think of him. Every car that’s shaped like his brings his face to my mind. Every beat of my heart reminds me how he could make it rush. My lips burn from missing him. My hands curl along the steering wheel, wishing they were holding his hands instead of this plastic piece of shit circle.
“He’s really gone,” I finally admit after several long minutes of quiet.
My brother doesn’t answer out loud, but I hear his thoughts.
He is, Hannah. He’s family, and he fucking left.
“Let’s go home,” I say, not bothering to look at my brother again as I check my mirrors and signal. I pull onto the highway, and about halfway through our trip, Tommy flips my stereo on, turning it all the way up and losing himself to his own thoughts.
Two weeks later…
“Why don’t you come with us? It’ll be fun,” Tommy says, though he knows it won’t. Being a third-wheel date with your brother and some girl you barely know for prom is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. Even Bailey has a date. And her dad is letting the guy pick her up and take her to dinner first.
Milestones are happening left and right, and I’m wearing the same sweatpants for a fourth day in a row, along with Dustin’s old Checkered Flag T-shirt that he won at a race in Nevada.
My mom has quit begging me to get out of my funk. I caught her crying two nights ago, and though she played it off as allergies, I knew better. She misses Dustin, too. And she is probably torturing herself over the way she treated him in the weeks before he left.
“You’re sure?” my brother asks one more time, leaning over the sofa and staring at me upside down. I reach up and pretend to grab his nose, the way our parents did when we were little kids.
“I’m positive. Now, go on and get out of here before Mom makes you let her take more pictures in front of something else,” I joke.
My brother laughs, and we smile at each other with mouths that don’t quite stretch the distance. Our emotions haven’t reached our eyes in days, not since Dustin left. He took our lights with him when he left, and it’s going to be a while before they burn again.
I notch up the volume on the TV as my brother dashes out the door with his date, and settle into the nest I built on the couch for my next TV show binge. My dad’s been working on a new case, and while I suspect it has something to do with Dustin, I don’t let myself pry. If he’s helping him, good. But if Dustin is talking to my dad and not to me? I also don’t want to know. I’d rather go along with the terse answer my father gave me the first time I questioned the folder stuffed with pages he closed the second I entered the kitchen.
It’s just a bunch of pain-in-the-ass paperwork. Story of my life.
That paperwork seems to be reaching its end. He just headed out the door after Tommy left to drop one last filing in the mail.
“You sure you don’t want company?” my mom asks, hovering over me the way Tommy did a minute ago. I force a smile on my face.
“No, Mom. I’m happy. I promise.” I don’t bother crossing my fingers anymore. She knows I’m bluffing, but calling me on it will only make me mad, and then we’ll fight. We’ve all fought way too much lately. We’re all tired from it. I’m tired.
“All right,” she says, grabbing her tablet from the side table to binge read while I opt for the more passive form of entertainment downstairs.
I start the first episode of some show about killer squids taking over a ship, and let my eyes glaze over and focus on nothing but the vapid dialogue and terrible casting. There are six seasons of this thing, and it’s so popular they’re mass printing T-shirts with quotes from the show. I don’t get it, but after a full weekend with nothing but Mr. Squid and the couch, I intend to.
I make it through about thirteen minutes of Episode 1 before I slap the remote and hit the pause button. I don’t think a squid shirt is in my future. Maybe massively fattening snacks will make it better.
My stomach a bland container that’s barely processed anything over the last two weeks, I let it growl at the thought of popcorn and decide that might be the key to making it happy. I pull one of the packets from the box and toss it in the microwave, then spend the next two and half minutes walking in circles around my kitchen and downstairs.
I play a game with myself where I’m not allowed to step on cracks, which gets harder as the tiles get smaller in the hallway. I close the bathroom door behind me and prepare myself to feel everything I tend to when I’m in this room. The plastic wrap draped over my prom dress behind me catches me off guard, though. I spin and pull the hanger down from the spring stop at the top of the door.
“Oh, you beautiful dress,” I whisper to myself.
Without hesitating, I pull the plastic from the hanger and slide the straps free, letting the slinky fabric wind through my fingers. Closing my eyes, I imagine the way the silkiness feels on my body, how it would have felt to have Dustin’s hands roaming over the skirt, the top, his fingers sinking into the open back.
I pull my shirt over my head and kick my legs free of the giant sweatpants, slipping into the perfect dress. I spin and look down at the skirt as it splays out into a bell shape. It sways when I make a hard stop, and I run my hands down the bodice and gather the soft folds at my hips, clinging it to me. I lift my head to take in the full picture in the mirror. I’ve never felt more beautiful in a piece of clothing in my life. Even now, as hideous and empty as I am, this gown somehow makes me feel like a princess.
“Why?” I hum. My fake smile falls fast, the weight of heartbreak dragging it farther. My eyes dim and I let my attention fall away from the mirror to the beaded glitter decorating the front of my body.
Why did you leave, Dustin? Where did you go? Why aren’t you here?
The questions never seem to stop. I d
on’t think they ever will. And I’m so damn afraid the day will come that I will want them to. I’ll pray for the thoughts to leave. I’ll beg myself to quit caring. It hurts so much, but that hurt, it’s what I have. It’s him. If I don’t hurt from missing him, then he’s really gone. He’ll be gone for good.
The microwave beeping echoes in the kitchen, snapping me out of my indulgence. I take off my gown and hide it under the plastic sheath where it belongs, safe and guarded, ready for next year, when Dustin comes home and takes me to my prom, and proves to everyone how wrong they were about him.
About us.
One year later . . .
“Are you sure this is where you want to spend your prom? I really am cool going to the actual dance, you know?”
Michael Bosa is the most compliant prom date in the world.
“I’m seriously okay with being here instead,” I say, roaming my hand over the cold metal knob of the shifter. My eyes lower as we pull up to the Straights.
I graduate next week, and I’ll be out of here in days. I opted to start at Northern for the summer session. I’m sick of this place. Sick of turning around and expecting to see someone who is never going to show up.
What a fool I’ve been.
“It’s just, you wore that dress, and you look. . .” Bosa trails off. He’s still a little intimidated by me. He thinks I’m still Dustin’s girl. I haven’t been her in a long time. Maybe I never was. I was naïve to think I belonged to him so completely.
“How do I look?” I ask coyly. I bat my lashes, feeling the weight of the deep black mascara I layered on. I wanted to be someone else tonight. No, to become someone else. This girl doesn’t fall for anyone. She captures hearts and holds them in her hands for a while, but always sets them free. Love is an illusion. I’m not even sure my parents actually love each other anymore, and I always thought they were this perfect union. I’ve been watching them closely, though, over the last few months. They hardly talk, and when they do, it’s more like a messaging service.
