by Adi Alsaid
Who the hell was this beautiful tornado of a girl who had come into Hudson’s life and uprooted everything he’d known?
“All I had to do was stay at home,” he said, looking out at his house. “Get some sleep, show up there on time. It was so easy. We could have stayed in. We could have...I don’t know. Why did we have to go to the island yesterday, of all days?”
He could sense her eyes on him. “Your dad’s a nice guy. He’ll understand.”
“It doesn’t matter if he understands,” Hudson said, his voice rising. “I may have just ruined my future. Don’t you get it? This was my one shot at a full scholarship. There’s no way they’ll give me one now.”
She reached out and put a hand over his, but he kept it tight on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “I’m sorry this happened. But wasn’t it worth it? It was still the greatest night of your life, right?”
In a few minutes, his dad would walk out, on his way to work. Hudson’s stomach turned with guilt at the thought. His dad spent all his time in the garage, wanting only one thing for his son, and now Hudson had thrown it right back in his face, all for some girl. He couldn’t help but bow his head, as if his shame could just drop right out of him.
“I don’t know,” he said, turning toward her. “It’s hard to see it that way right now.”
Leila’s eyes glimmered in the rising sun. What right did she have to be so beautiful at a time like this?
Somewhere in the neighborhood, a car was coming down the road. Hudson could hear its engine, at least a V6, in good shape. Hudson wished they would have just stayed at home, fallen asleep on top of his comforter, woken up on time in merely sleep-wrinkled clothes, avoiding any room for doubt about whether or not it had been the greatest night of his life. But his night with Leila was tainted by this hungover morning.
“I didn’t keep you on the island,” Leila said, her voice calm, soft. “You did.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Hudson shot back. “The way you stayed parked outside my house last night? How was I not supposed to come running out? And we didn’t have to swim across the river—that was your idea. We could have taken the boat, brought our cell phones with us, set an alarm. We didn’t have to stay there all night. You knew I had the interview.”
“You knew better than I did, Hudson.” She brought her feet up to the dashboard, tucking her knees against her chest. “You want to pretend I was in control last night, go ahead. But we both know the truth.”
“Yeah, what’s that?”
“You chose to stay out there with me. We could have swum back. I even asked you if that was what you wanted.” He couldn’t take the sight of her eyes anymore and turned away, catching his own reflection in the window. “‘No place I’d rather be.’ That’s what you said.”
“I don’t remember saying that.” Hudson’s leg still jittered against the car door, the annoying rattle filling the pauses between words, not letting silence grab hold of the air in the car. “And if I did, it’s only because I wasn’t thinking clearly.” Leila’s breath caught, as if it had stumbled on something. He could see her chin quiver ever so slightly.
Outside, Mrs. Roberson was walking her twin Chihuahuas, Bowser and Nacho, their tiny legs scampering to keep pace with her. She waved at Hudson cheerily, dressed in a pink tracksuit, her hair up in a ponytail. He raised his hand in response, feeling the tension in his fingers subside.
“You knew exactly what you were doing, Hudson,” Leila said, her gaze following Bowser and Nacho’s path down the street. “I think you were looking for an excuse to miss the interview. I think this happened for a reason, and as soon as you’re done being scared of admitting what you really want, you’ll see that maybe this is for the best.”
Hudson snorted derisively. “What are you talking about? Without that scholarship, I can’t afford school. Without school, I have no fucking future,” he said. He shook his head, amazed that the girl who’d understood him so clearly just yesterday now didn’t seem to get him at all.
Leila took her feet off the dashboard, slipping them back into the flip-flops and sitting up straight against the car seat. “Stop lying to yourself. You don’t want to go to school, Hudson.”
“You don’t even know me, Leila. What makes you think you know what I want?”
Leila suddenly opened the car door, swinging around so that her feet were on the asphalt, her back turned toward Hudson. The morning sounds came in through the open door, birds chirping, insects, somewhere a couple of kids laughing.
“I’ve heard you talk about this town like it’s the only thing you love aside from fixing cars. People go entire lives without figuring out exactly what they want from life. You already have it, and the future you and your dad have planned out for you is going to take it away from you.” One of her hands went to her face, but Hudson couldn’t see what she was doing with it. “You let us fall asleep on the oxbow because this is exactly where you want to be. You weren’t just talking about being there with me. You’re afraid of leaving Vicksburg, of leaving your dad.”
Hudson felt short of breath. He opened his own door and swung his feet out onto the curb, so that he and Leila had their backs to each other, like an old married couple moving to opposite sides of the bed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He stood up, slamming the door behind him. He meant to storm into his house, but his legs were weak, and he leaned back against Leila’s car, his gaze on his front door, the rolled-up newspaper lying on the welcome mat, its pages crumpled from its collision against the side of the house. A few moments passed, Hudson taking deep breaths to steady himself, his legs refusing to move. Then he heard the rubber smacking of Leila’s flip-flops stepping toward him.
He couldn’t tell exactly what he felt when he saw that she was crying. Whether he wanted to comfort her and wipe her eyes dry or whether he wanted her to keep crying, each tear proof that he was not the only one at fault. There was another part of him that may have even been a bit proud that she cared enough about him to be crying. How could all those things exist inside him at the same time and not tear him into shreds, reduce him to a pile of rubble on the sidewalk?
“Okay, okay. I messed everything up,” she said, standing right in front of him. “What can I do to fix this?”
“There’s nothing you can do,” he said, his voice calmer than he’d expected. It reminded him of his dad’s voice. “Maybe you should just go.”
A light breeze picked up, sending a waft of fresh-smelling air their way. Hudson realized that the two of them probably smelled of the river, of the ground they’d slept on, of yesterday. For how long would the smell or the sound of the river bring Leila to mind?
Her eyes were red, redder than they should have been, since only a couple of tears had slipped out and dripped wet streaks down her cheeks. Or maybe they were red from straining to keep the tears in. She took a breath, the air rushing into her lungs sounding thin and sharp, on the verge of whistling. “Okay,” she said. “I will.”
She threw her arms around him, too quickly for him to try to stop her. He could feel her tears dripping onto his neck. The breeze blew again and cooled the wet spots on his neck. It felt as if they might freeze.
Without another word, she kissed his cheek and then moved him aside to get into her car. The engine sounded good when it came to life—healthy, ready for her trip. He watched her struggle with the seat belt, then put the car into drive, glancing back at him and forcing a crooked, broken smile. Then the sun caught the window, and he couldn’t see inside anymore, which was just as well, since she was already headed down the road.
The girl responsible for the best night of his life was gone, headed vaguely north—who knew exactly where. He stood out there on the curb for a few minutes, watching his block, the familiar driveways basking in the light of the morning sun. Hudson lingered there, as if waiting for something e
lse to happen. Then he turned to his house, determined to put her out of his mind.
1
THE ONE THING Bree could never deal with was the still time in between adventures. Back in Reno, time had not been valuable, so its waste didn’t matter. But now, in her new life, every still moment was a suffocating one, a lost one. And no matter how badly she wanted to move, here she was, walking down the side of the highway in Kansas, kicking tufts of dried grass because there weren’t even any pebbles. She waited, bored, for the next car to stick her thumb out at.
The strap on her duffel bag was cutting into her shoulder, so she shifted it over to the other side and examined the little tread marks it had left on her skin. She couldn’t tell if the redness was from the strap or from the sun beating down on her all day. The bag wasn’t heavy—she never packed much, simply because she had fallen in love with the idea of traveling light—so she assumed that the redness was from the sun. She unzipped the bag and pulled out one of the three shirts she owned, a once-fluorescent-green tank top, and draped it over her head to keep her face from burning.
She sighed loudly and looked up at the sun as if it were to blame for the lack of cars. Here she was, light like dandelion fluff, ready for the wind to whisk her away, and nothing was happening.
Finally, the glimmer of something silver headed her way. She stuck her thumb out and even leaned a little forward, in case cleavage was more easily spotted. She hoped it wasn’t a trucker. Truckers were sometimes friendly but too often creepy instead—they were the reason she’d learned to carry a steak knife with her.
The sound of tires rushing against the pavement was as beautiful as any song she’d ever heard. She held her breath as the sedan came into view, but the car showed no signs of slowing, and within seconds the tires had whizzed past her.
Bree cursed at the gust of wind that trailed in the car’s wake and had knocked her green tank top to the asphalt. She grumbled as she knelt down to pick up the shirt, so anxious to get going that she almost didn’t see the second car coming. She stood back up and stuck her thumb out again, and the car instantly slowed down, the brakes not quite screeching but chirping loudly enough to be heard through the music that was blasting from inside. The car was old and crummy, its red paint job aiming for brilliance but coming closer to dried blood. Even the hubcaps were dark red.
Bree took a couple of steps toward the car and leaned over to look through the rolled-down passenger-side window. It surprised her to see that the driver was a girl more or less her age. She rarely saw other teens on the road, especially not on their own.
“Where you headed?” the driver called out over the music, which she hadn’t bothered to turn down.
“Anywhere,” Bree called back, exactly as she’d said over and over again, the perfect nomadic answer. She glanced at the interior of the car, taking in the iced coffee in the cup holder, the scattered receipts, the trash bag secured to the gearshift and stuffed to the brim with empty plastic bottles and junk-food wrappers. The inside of the car was red, too, but there it succeeded in its brilliance and looked almost new. The upholstery was red, the steering wheel was red, even the forgotten liquid in the Gatorade bottle on the floor was red.
“Perfect,” the girl said, and she motioned with a nod for Bree to come in.
She opened the door and climbed in, hoisting her duffel bag into the empty backseat of the car. She could feel her heart start to beat harder with the familiar sensation of adrenaline and motion. It was as if her heart was not simply pumping blood around her body but pounding the stillness out of her system.
The driver seemed to consider the open road for a second, as if daring it to keep her from gunning her engine. “I’m Leila,” she said.
“Bree.”
Leila nodded and offered a smile. Then the car rolled forward, and the wind started rushing in through the open window, pulling loose strands free from Bree’s ponytail. They flapped stingingly against the back of her sunburned neck and danced wildly across her eyes, thick tresses that had nearly turned to dreads during her nine months of roaming.
After a mile or so, when the song playing through the stereo system ended, Leila turned down the music and rolled up her window halfway. “So, what’s your story?”
“I don’t have a story,” Bree said, still needing to more or less yell over the sound of the highway.
“Everyone has a story,” Leila said, combing back her black tresses over her ear, only to have the wind uproot them. It made Bree feel somehow connected to the girl, how their hair danced.
“Well, then, my story is...” She motioned to the highway. “You know. Here. Going. The road.”
Leila looked over her shoulder, taking her eyes off the road long enough for Bree to get nervous. “Did you run away from home?”
They passed a sign saying that they had fifty miles to go to reach Kansas City, and Bree gave a little nod. She closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of the wind on her skin. She didn’t blame Leila for asking, since Bree had wondered the same about others, but she still hated being asked. Mostly because no matter how much she dressed it up with the details of her departure, no matter how much life she’d soaked up since, the basic truth was simple: Yes, she had run away. As they did all too often during quiet moments, thoughts of Bree’s sister, Alexis, rushed in. She opened her eyes. “What about you?” She asked. “What’s your story?”
“North,” Leila said, as if it explained everything.
“That’s it? That’s not much of a story.”
Leila turned to look at Bree, eyes green and full of so much life that Bree almost felt jealous of what they might have seen. “I have to go to Alaska. I’ve got a rare medical condition where I can’t be away from the magnetic poles for too long, or my body starts to decompose.”
Bree shifted uncomfortably in her seat, tensing up. She wasn’t good at dealing with diseases. She’d dealt with her parents’ for long enough. Then Leila cracked a smile. Bree relaxed. “Shut up. I almost believed you.”
Leila leaned in toward the steering wheel as her body shook with laughter. “Wow, I did not think that you’d fall for that. I’m not usually a good liar.” She controlled her laughter, then said, “No, I’m going to Alaska to see the Northern Lights. I want to take some pictures for my school portfolio.”
Bree nodded and looked out her window at the midwestern sky. She sometimes felt as if she might be swallowed up by it. The music coming from the speakers was fast, brimming with energy that resonated with Bree and clashed with the emptiness of the landscape. “That’s pretty cool,” she said. “Ever seen them before?”
“Just in pictures. Have you?”
Bree turned away from the window. “Yeah, when I was a kid. In Europe.” The memory was faint, the sight of the Northern Lights overwhelmed by the presence of her parents. She couldn’t even remember if it had been Switzerland or Denmark where she’d seen them, or how her mom had smelled: coffee on her breath or soap on her skin. Bree often wished she’d paid more attention before the smell of sickness started invading everything. “I don’t really remember them all that well, though.”
“Hmm,” Leila said, momentarily lost in thought. She brought a hand up to her mouth and chewed absentmindedly on the skin between her thumb and forefinger.
“How long have you been on the road for?” Bree asked.
“I’m just getting started. The later it is in summer, the better the chance to see the Lights, so I’m going slowly,” Leila said, moving both hands to the steering wheel. “You?”
“Um, it’s been a few months, I guess. It’s hard to keep track of time after a while. Which is kind of how I like it.”
“Why’s that?”
“When you don’t have any reason to think of days as weekdays or weekends, you start to realize that all days are pretty much the same. And that kind of gives you the freedom to do whatever you want. It’s a lot easier to seize
the day than it is to seize a Tuesday. You have errands on Tuesday. On Tuesday you eat pizza again. Your favorite TV show is on Tuesday, you know? But the day...” she said, adding hand gestures to signify the importance. “The day is all just hours you’re alive for. They can be filled with anything. Unexpectedness, wildness, maybe a little bit of lawlessness, even.” She looked over at Leila to gauge her reaction. “If that makes sense.”
Leila glanced away from the road to smile appreciatively at Bree. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean.” She turned back to the road. “Seize the Tuesday.” A few moments passed. A new song came on, another burst of energy and liveliness. Bree reached back to her bag to grab a granola bar and offered one to Leila, which she accepted with a thank-you.
When she was done with it, Leila stuffed the wrapper into the plastic bag hanging off the gearshift. “You ever find it easier said than done? The whole seizing-the-day thing. Carpe diem is a pretty well-known philosophy, but if it were easier to put into practice, we wouldn’t have to be reminding each other of it all the time.”
Bree laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’s true.” She uselessly combed her matted hair back behind her ear, only to have the dreadlocks flap in the wind again. “You just have to have something that constantly reminds you to do it. I don’t really ever have to tell myself to seize the day. It’s just, whenever I’m not, I feel like I’m slowly disintegrating or something. Like my soul is itching, and if I don’t actively live my life, it’ll never stop.”
“Yeah? What is it that reminds you?”
“Dead parents,” Bree said. She didn’t want to bring the mood down, but it was the one thing she could never lie about.
“Sorry,” Leila said. Then, after a beat, she added, “I’ve got the whole degenerative-disease thing reminding me to seize my days.”
