by Jessi Kirby
Rusty raised his eyebrows and smirked again, not bothering to hide that this was all very entertaining for him. He reached over and grabbed the piece of licorice I’d just pulled from the package, right out of my hand, and took a bite. Then he talked and chewed at the same time. “You just . . . grew up is all.”
I pulled another twist out of the package, bit into it, and rolled my eyes even though I was flattered just a tiny bit. “Well. Nice of you to notice.”
“I didn’t. Not until Willy or Walter or whatever his name was got all stupid over you and your smelly-ass boots.” He laughed.
Oh. I pressed my lips together and nodded, my little bubble of pride burst by the realization of what he was getting at. What else did I expect?
“Wyatt. His name was Wyatt.” I tried to think of something to say in his defense, but I knew whatever I came up with wouldn’t make a difference. Rusty would just make a joke out of him, so I let it go and squinted at the rolling backs of the hills on the horizon. Wyatt was sweet and sincere and had given me a few moments of understanding and kindness. Rusty didn’t need to go on and ruin it.
Out the corner of my eye, I watched him nod slowly, and I knew he wasn’t finished. “Wyatt. That’s right.” I didn’t say anything, and Rusty spit the toothpick out his open window before turning back to me. “Y’all go swimmin’ this morning?” His tone had shifted the tiniest bit—less sarcasm, more curiosity.
I was still wary of the conversation, but it gave me some small satisfaction to tell him. “Scuba diving. We watched the sun come up from under the water.” I paused, surprised that along with the image in my mind came the same sadness that was there before. “It was the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.” My voice wavered a little. Rusty didn’t say anything, but I saw him look at me in the mirror. I bit the inside of my cheek and turned toward the window, letting the hot wind rush over my face.
After a long moment, he did something that surprised me. A small thing that just about did me in, coming from him. He wrapped a warm hand around the back of my neck and squeezed gently. And for the first time since we’d left, he said something right.
“Finn woulda loved that, you know. That you did that.” He paused a beat, looked right at me quick, then away again. “He’d be proud of you, H.”
The yellow line I’d been watching out my window blurred, and I swallowed red licorice over the lump in my throat. Rusty squeezed my neck again, and when he pulled his hand away I wished for a sliver of a moment he would have left it, warm and sure on my bare shoulder.
I looked at him then and said the only thing I could. “I miss him.” Rusty’s jaw tightened, and he shifted in the seat. “I miss him so much.”
He glanced at the side mirror, then back to the road. “Me too, H. I miss him too.”
We didn’t say anything else for a long time. Just kinda let it hang there that we were actually together on something. After a while, my eyes got heavy and I leaned my head on the seat. Sleep was closing in fast, the kind you know is going to take you under deep, and I was running out of fight.
In between long blinks, I watched Rusty sit back in the seat, one easy hand on the wheel, and more than once thought I felt his eyes on me. But I could’ve been dreaming by then. Either way, at that moment, in the rumbling cab of the Pala, he felt like the only other person in the world who might be feeling the very same thing as me. And that in itself was a comfort.
10
I had to pee in the worst, gut-clenching, leg-crossing kind of way, and no amount of distraction was gonna help. I glanced over at Rusty, trying to gauge if he’d drunk his whole soda and might need to stop soon. I didn’t want to be the one to make us stop twice in a row. I’d already made him pull into a dusty little gas station when I woke up over an hour ago, and the stop that was supposed to be a quick run-in-and-out ended up taking over fifteen minutes while the crackly old guy behind the counter schooled me on the dangers of driving the highway in the middle of monsoon season. I assured him I wasn’t alone and even bought an extra jug of water along with my other road snacks because he insisted it was important to have. Which made me laugh, since it seemed to me the last thing you’d need more of in a monsoon was water.
When I got back, Rusty took one look at the gallon of water and giant sodas and shook his head. “You drink all that, we’ll be stopping every damn hour for you to pee.”
“I’m not gonna drink it all. One’s for you. Here.” I handed him a Coke and set the water jug in the backseat. “The water’s in case we get caught in a monsoon.”
He just looked at me like I’d said something stupid as I ducked in out of the swirling wind and yanked the door shut.
“Long story. Never mind.” I clicked the seat belt across my lap and reached for the wrinkled map on the floor. “How far do you think we can make it today if we go without stopping?”
Rusty put the car in gear and shrugged. “If I keep driving and you don’t need to stop eight more times?” He took a long gulp of his soda and pulled back out onto the empty highway. “We could go forever.”
“Could we?” I looked up from the map momentarily, then felt a little ridiculous. I hadn’t meant it to sound so . . . like every other girl who talked to him.
Rusty didn’t answer. Just put his eyes on the road and let the hint of a smirk cross his face, which brought me right back to irritated. I turned up the radio, grabbed my Kyra Kelley magazine from the gas station the day before, and did my best to look occupied while resolving not to make a fool of myself in front of him for the rest of the trip. And to make sure that the next time we stopped, it wasn’t because of me.
That was almost two hours ago, and now I was gonna burst. I’d spent the time eating and drinking and fiddling with whatever I could to pass the time and make it not so awkward while Rusty drove along silently. We’d given up on music after a while, since there was nothing but static on the radio and I wasn’t about to plug in my iPod again. Every so often, Rusty would run a careless hand through his hair or stretch his legs out a bit, but that was it. He seemed like he was off in his own thoughts, so I let him be.
I glanced out the window, hoping for a sign saying it was only a few miles to another little podunk town, or a rest stop—even a bush would have sufficed at this point. But there was only flat, brown desert and a horizon rimmed with clouds. And wind. I could see it sweeping over the ground, kicking up miniature dust devils off in the distance. It made me think of clips on the news or bits in the newspaper that told all about how harsh the weather was over in the deserts where our troops were deployed. How sandstorms would tear through, blasting everything in their paths, making it difficult to see or even breathe. I’d asked Finn about it once in an e-mail, and he downplayed it, saying it wasn’t that bad, and whenever it happened they just had to hunker down and wait it out. I looked over at Rusty, who seemed tired, and the thought occurred to me that maybe that’s what we were doing together in the cab of the Pala, on the dusty highway. Riding out the storm Finn’s absence left behind. Maybe that’s why Rusty was so quiet. I glanced at him again out the corner of my eye, and he must’ve felt it, because his eyes flicked over in my direction.
“Hand me that cup down there.”
“It’s empty.”
“I know that. I gotta take a piss.” He motioned with his head at the Coke cup by my feet.
“Are you kidding me?”
“I look like I’m kidding you?” He unbuckled his belt. “Just gimme the cup and look the other way. I gotta go.”
“No.” Not only did the thought of him peeing into my empty soda cup right next to me repulse me, but bending in half to reach it when I had to go as bad as I did would surely put me over the edge. And I was desperate enough now to crouch behind the car myself. “Why don’t you just pull over? Like a normal person?”
Rusty cracked a sunflower seed between his teeth and spit the shell out the window. “Fine.” He looked in the rearview mirror briefly before pulling onto the dirt shoulder. “Then you’re drivin
g awhile. I’m beat.”
We each took a turn with our business out in the hot wind, which wasn’t an easy task. For me at least. When I got back in, Rusty was stretched out across the backseat, hands behind his head, grinning up at the ceiling.
“Get any on your boots?”
“Oh my god, shut up.”
He propped his heels up on the back armrest. “What? I did. It’s windy out there.”
I turned the key and revved the engine, adjusting the mirrors back down to my eye level. “Charming. And I thought girls liked you for your jock status, not your conversational skills.”
“There’s a lot they like about me, H, but it doesn’t have much to do with football. Or conversation.” I couldn’t see his face in the mirror, but I could hear the smug smile in his voice.
“Okay, you can stop now. I don’t need to know anymore.”
“Just sayin’ . . .”
A gust of wind blasted the windshield with sand as I pulled us back onto the highway and gave it some gas.
“Might wanna close those vents. Wind’s picking up out there. And slow down if that sand kicks up. Can’t see ten feet in front of you when it really gets going. And—”
“You wanna drive?”
“Sure don’t.”
“Then leave me alone about it. I’ve been driving this thing ever since Finn left.”
A steady wind sprayed the windshield with dust, like rain, and Rusty’s boots tapped against the window, but there was no answer from the backseat. I brought my eyes back to the road and the sky, which had gotten three shades darker in the space of a minute.
I snapped the vents shut. “You know what I will never understand?”
“What’s that?”
“Why he went in the first place.” When Finn first told me about his decision to enlist, I thought it was a joke. When his face went serious and his tone resolute, I realized it wasn’t, but I wasn’t about to let it go. I’d pleaded with him over and over to explain it to me. To justify it. And some small part of me was convinced that all my questioning and doubt would somehow be enough to change his mind. But every time, his simple answer, which simultaneously frustrated and terrified me, was that it was the right thing to do. And I’d wanted to argue a million different reasons why it wasn’t and why he shouldn’t, but the only one I could come up with was me. I never said it, though, because if I did and he still went, what did that mean? That I wasn’t enough reason to stay? That he didn’t need me as much as I needed him? That he was tired of me needing him?
“You and me both.” Rusty let out a sigh, and I watched in the mirror as he sat up, no trace left of his smile. “We never did see eye to eye on that. Me and him.” He looked out the back window, kept his eyes away from the mirror. “That’s why things got rough with us, I guess.”
I watched him in the mirror a long moment, waiting for him to explain, but he didn’t, and it made me wonder if maybe Rusty had asked Finn why he was going, argued with him over it, and come away not liking the answer. The only other person who needed Finn as much as I did was him. They’d called each other brothers. They were supposed to go to college together so they could play football and stay that way. Always.
“Anyway. Doesn’t matter what he was thinking.” Rusty said. “Nothing was gonna change his mind.”
The clouds that had gathered on the horizon lit up in a quick series of flashes, revealing vertical streaks of gray below them. I instinctively counted the seconds in my head for the thunder, but it must’ve been too far away to hear.
Rusty leaned forward, his arms over the front seat, and let out a low whistle. “Looks like we’re in for a little storm.”
“It’s pretty far off, isn’t it?”
He leaned forward even farther, straining to look out the windshield. “Right now it is. But it’s coming this way fast.” As if on cue, the clouds flashed bright again, and this time, after a few seconds, I thought I heard the rumble of thunder over the steady engine of the Pala.
“You want me to drive?” Rusty asked.
I gripped the wheel a little tighter and looked straight ahead. “No. Thanks. I know how to drive in the rain.”
One fat raindrop plopped on the windshield, and almost instantly, a smattering of them followed in quick succession. I reached for the wipers, and another cloud lit up in front of us, electricity zapping a jagged wire of light through it. “Whoa!” I yanked my foot from the gas.
Rusty leaned in close. “Easy, easy. Don’t slam the brakes. You’re fine. Just let ’er slow down and get your lights on.”
I pulled the knob next to the steering wheel and the lights came on, but they didn’t make much difference in the strange false-dark that the clouds had brought with them. Way up ahead of us I saw another set of taillights come on just as a flash zipped through the clouds again, lighting them up pink. The crack of thunder that followed drowned out the Pala’s engine and boomed in my chest. And then the clouds above us cut loose all the water in them.
I rubbed at the fogged-up windshield in front of me. “Maybe I should pull over. It’s getting hard to see.”
“Nope. Don’t pull over,” Rusty said. “Best way to cause an accident. Or end up in a ditch. Just slow down and keep going. Here.” He climbed over the front seat, got himself settled, and slid the defrost knob to full blast. “That should help.” Hot air rushed in. “Crack your window too, so we don’t bake in here.”
I did, then concentrated on the road and let out the breath I must’ve been holding. For the first time since we’d left, I was actually relieved he was there. The fogginess on the windshield disappeared in splotches above the vents at first, while the wipers squeaked a busy rhythm back and forth. Mildly cool air flowed in from the windows, and I breathed in the smell of wet asphalt and dirt that came along with it. I smiled over at Rusty. “Thanks. I don’t know why that freaked me out so much. I—”
Brilliant light ripped through the sky above us a split second before the crack of thunder that drowned out every other sound in the world. Rain hammered down even harder, in streams of water the wipers didn’t stand a chance against. Through them, all I could see was a blur of jagged lightning and streaky gray.
“Crap!” I lifted my foot from the gas and strained forward against the steering wheel for the lines on the road. “This is crazy. I can’t see anything.” But as I said it, I did see. Two red taillights right in front of us.
I slammed the brakes, and the Pala fishtailed across the highway. The steering wheel jerked wildly in my hands until I couldn’t tell if we were sliding or spinning. I froze. Braced myself. Rusty yelled something. Time slowed down, and I got that feeling again like none of it was real. Like there was no way we could be screeching through the rain in Finn’s car. Like I wasn’t just about to finish off the last of my family, and Rusty too. I braced myself for the end. And then I felt Rusty’s weight leaned over on me, his hands on the wheel with mine. He was yelling something I couldn’t understand at first, and then I did and yanked my hands from the wheel. Rusty turned it hard once, twice, three times. And then we plowed smack into something big. The force of it threw my chest right into the steering wheel and knocked the wind out of me. I heard another thud that must’ve been Rusty hitting the dash, and then everything went eerie-quiet, except for the rain that beat down angry against the roof.
11
I brought a trembling hand to my chest. Reached the other one across the seat for Rusty. Lightning flashed above us, and his hand wrapped around mine. “H—you all right?” The smack of the thunder drowned out my attempt at an answer. I took a breath, and pain rippled across my chest. Rusty’s hands felt their way up my arm until they found my cheeks, and then he was right there, looking me in the face with clear, worried eyes. “You okay? Say something. You hurt?”
A thin trickle of blood made a line down his temple from somewhere up in his hair, and I watched it, barely able to breathe.
“Honor.”
His voice, firmer this time, brought my eyes bac
k to his, and I nodded.
“You okay?”
I nodded again, trying to answer, but my eyes went back to the blood on his cheek, and what little composure I had crumbled. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed. For all of it. For almost killing us, for the blood on Rusty’s forehead, for taking off in Finn’s car on a stupid trip . . . for the Pala being the only thing I had left of anything, because my parents were dead and my brother was dead and—
Rusty scooted closer and turned the car off. I hadn’t even realized it was still running. “Hey, hey. It’s okay. We’re all right.” I heard him suck in a deep breath, and he wrapped a solid arm around my shoulder.
I rested my head back on his arm and looked up at the tiny dots in the upholstery on the ceiling. “I shouldn’t have slammed the brakes. You said two seconds before that not to slam the brakes.” I looked over at him and brought a shaky hand to the blood moving down his temple. “I almost killed us.”
He grabbed my hands and squeezed. “That car came outta nowhere. Anybody would’ve done that. We’re fine, okay?”
I felt my shoulders relax a bit.
He sat back up and looked through the windshield. “Can’t say the same for Pala, though. I think we knocked something loose in there.”
I sat up and saw a faint but steady stream of something white rising from beneath the hood, up through the rain. “Is that smoke? Oh my god, should we get out and check it?” Lightning flickered, followed by a loud rumble.
“No.” He rolled down the passenger window and leaned out, stretching toward the hood for a second. When he ducked back in, he was soaked through, the blood washed clean from his face. “Doesn’t smell like smoke. I think it’s steam.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means we’re not goin’ anywhere for now. Not till it clears up and I can get a look in there.” He rolled his window back up, leaving it open just a crack. “We’re off the road, from what I can tell, and whatever we hit wasn’t that car, but I can’t see anything out there. Better sit tight.”
