by Sarah Ready
I’ve backed her to a wall again. I’m standing over her, and all I want to do is kiss her and punish her until she admits that she’s wrong.
“But you want to,” I say.
She shakes her head to deny it.
“Throw out this soul mate garbage and make your own choice.”
“No.” Her face is pale but her eyes are determined. She won’t, I see it now.
“Why?” I put my hands on the wall over her shoulders and lean into her. “Why?” I ask against her lips.
Another tear forms and her lips twist.
“Why, Chloe?”
“Because.”
“Because, why?”
She pushes at me, but I won’t let her out.
“Why?”
“Because.”
“That’s not good enough.”
I’ve pushed her too far. A small sob escapes her. “Because,” she cries, “if I try and it doesn’t work, I’ll break. I’ll break, Nick.”
She holds back another sob. I reach out and wipe away the tears on her face.
“I don’t understand,” I say.
She closes her eyes and drops her head.
“Help me understand. Please.”
I reach out to wipe her tears. Then the roar of an engine cuts through the night. I stop, and spin around. I know that sound.
It’s Shelly.
She tears out of her parking spot in reverse. My stomach drops. What the hell? Then she whips into drive and her tires spin on the asphalt, kicking up dirt and smoke.
“It’s Matt,” cries Chloe.
It is. He’s taking her.
Shelly’s wheels squeal shrilly and then she revs into drive.
I yell an expletive and sprint after her. I hear Chloe behind me. I can see a coyote head in the driver’s seat. He’s at the edge of the parking lot, waiting to turn onto the street.
“Stop,” I yell. “Get out of my car.”
I’m thirty feet away from her. I yell again. If he hurts her, if he wrecks her, or puts a single scratch on her, I swear to God. “Stop!”
I pump my arms and run faster. Matt looks back, and he must see me because he throws back his head and howls. Then he guns the engine and swerves into traffic.
Shelly fishtails and sends up rocks and dirt behind her. Cars honk and swerve around her. She barely avoids getting T-boned. I swear, I nearly have a heart attack. I can catch him, I have to catch him. There’s stopped traffic ahead and a red light. I’ll yank open the door and pull him out and…
He runs the red light. And the next. I run faster, sprint harder.
Shelly swerves around another car.
“Nick,” I hear Chloe yelling behind me. But I can’t stop.
There’s another red light, this one has a cross walk. There are kids in the crosswalk. But I’m too far. I can’t stop it and I can’t stop Shelly and I can’t save her and I can’t…
Matt hits the brakes, Shelly swerves. He yanks her wheel and she spins in a circle. My heart stops. The kids…no, Shelly misses them. She hits the curb, ricochets, hits a dividing wall, then…
I’ve stopped running. It’s all in slow motion.
Matt has jumped out of her door and is running down the street. A semi blares its horn, and then I watch, completely helpless to do anything as Shelly is swiped by the edge of the truck. She flips end over end. Each hit, I feel, like it’s me flipping over. Once, twice, another. Then she comes to a stop. I start running again, before her final landing.
She’s a car. Yes. I know she’s just a car. But she’s mine, she’s my friend, and sometimes she was my only friend. The nights I thought I wasn’t going to make it, when I wanted everything to just end, she pulled me through. And now, this is how I repay her. I let her get taken and I let her get hurt, and…
I run for her, mindless of the traffic around me, the horns and the cars and the shouts. I’m almost to her. I can fix her. I can fix her, it’ll be okay. Her front is twisted, her windows are broken, her backend is crushed, but I can fix her. I can help her. Please.
Then, the fuel tank, a spark, something, I don’t know. She catches fire. One minute, I’m almost to her, the next, I’m thrown back as she bursts into flames.
20
Nick
* * *
Hours later, Chloe and I sit on the curb and stare at the charred area where Shelly burned. We gave a police statement and our information. There’s nothing else to be done.
“He stole Shelly,” says Chloe in a numb voice.
I nod. A heavy weight settles in my stomach. She’s gone. I stare at the black scorch mark, the broken glass, and the bits of metal on the road. Shelly’s been with me for such a long time that I never imagined her not being there. I keep expecting this to have been a weird hallucination and for her to still be in her parking spot back at the hotel.
“All our clothes, our money, our suitcases, it’s all gone,” Chloe says.
We’re sitting on the curb in a rooster costume and a panda costume, with no clothing, no money and no phone. And no Shelly.
“But…we only have two days. I have to get to Matt Number Six.”
Slowly, I turn to stare at her. I just lost a piece of myself and all she cares about is that she doesn’t have a ride to Matt Number Six. I clench my jaw and let out a long, slow breath.
“We weren’t done,” I say.
“What?”
“We didn’t finish our conversation. Tell me why we have to get to him? Why can’t we go home? Why can’t you let this go? Choose someone on your own? Don’t give me any bull crap about breaking. Tell me the truth.”
She shakes her head and scoots farther away on the curb.
“Tell me,” I growl. I’m too raw, I can’t take evasion or misunderstandings anymore.
She flinches at my tone and her face drains of color. Then, she looks away and wraps her arms around herself. I see it then, she’s hurting too.
“Are you okay?”
She drops her head to her knees, then after a long minute she looks up and starts to talk.
“I chose before,” she says.
I nod. “Ron.”
“I followed my heart, and I followed it wrong.”
I start to respond, but she holds up her hand. “I can’t be cynical like you, because if I gave in to that, I’d just lay down and give up forever. This ‘deluded’ hope is the only thing that keeps me going. That somewhere there’s someone who is good and kind and who will love me forever and never, ever hurt me.”
At the way she spits out the word “hurt,” my heart twists in my chest.
“I chose a dozen times and each time I chose wrong. I’m done with choosing.”
What I see in her face breaks my heart.
“So, here it is. I’m going to keep looking for him. And keep looking. It wasn’t Ron. It wasn’t the rest of them.” She looks at me and lowers her voice to a whisper, “And it’s not you, Nick. It’s not you.”
And that is what a nail in a coffin feels like. I know, because it just got pounded into my heart.
“I didn’t know about the flagpole, or the wedding, I—”
“You left. You left me, and you never came back. You never even tried to explain, Nick. You just left.” She stares down at her knees, then closes her eyes.
I did. I left her. I let her down, and really, I let us both down. I don’t have any excuse, I could’ve called her, tried to set things right, but instead I got angry and cynical.
Right now, I want to go give Ron another round for hurting Chloe, and the rest of the guys in her past too. But, hey, I’m one of them…so.
She lowers her head and tries to hold back her tears. Her body shakes but she doesn’t make a sound. She cries silent, quiet, aching tears. Dry tears that no one can see, so they don’t know how much pain is inside.
“Chloe,” I say. I hold out my hand to her, palm up, and wait. I let it hang between us. For thirty seconds, forty, a minute. Until finally, she reaches out and sets her hand in mine. Then she l
eans in and I hold her.
We sit on the curb and watch the cars go by. Sometimes, a car honks, or people shout. After all, we’re two fuzzy animals on the side of the road. But mostly, we take in the quiet of falling night. I wait, thinking maybe a miracle will happen and Shelly will come back. I wait, thinking maybe Chloe will speak, but she doesn’t. I run a thumb over her hand and hold her.
Finally, Chloe shifts away from me and clears her throat. “I forgave Ron. A long time ago. That was almost too easy,” she says.
I squeeze her hand but don’t interrupt.
She continues, “The one thing I’ve never been able to do is forgive myself.” Her mouth turns down and a tear falls. “People think, why would someone who was hurt have to forgive herself? They don’t understand. It’s for everything. For being there. For staying. For trusting. For loving. For letting it happen. For not knowing it was going to happen. For being…what?...a person who attracted it. Like, what did I do to make this happen? What did I do? And then, I hate myself. I hate myself for being there, for seeing myself being hurt and not being able to stop it. Because shouldn’t I have been able to stop it? No. And then I hate myself for forgiving it. For forgiving him, almost too easily. And not ever being able to forgive myself. Why can I forgive him, but never me? I’m not…I’m not…worth anything anymore, not to anyone, not even me. That’s why I have to do this. You see? Because there’s nobody else out there that I can trust. I can’t even trust myself. Not with this.”
She stops and she has no more tears. She stares across the street at the buildings, her gaze distant.
I look down at my hands and think about how helpless I feel right now. There’s nothing I can do. I can’t fix this. I can’t fix any of this. And now I understand why finding Matt Smith is so important to her.
That’s something I can do.
“I’ll find him,” I say. “I’ll get you to him in time.”
She looks over at me and I wipe the tears from her face.
“I’ll find him,” I say.
“But Shelly’s gone. All our money’s gone. Our phones. Everything’s gone.”
I pull her to my side. “I’ll get you to your soul mate. I promise.”
I won’t let her down again.
21
Nick
* * *
We need to get to Rachel, Nevada, a tiny speck of a town in the desert about three hours north of Vegas. No one at the furry party is heading that way. I ask everyone in the hotel lobby, all the people coming in and out of the diner next door, and even the hotel workers. No one is heading north. No one.
To get some cash, I pawn my watch for a measly seventy-two dollars. I try to pawn our costumes, but the shop doesn’t want them. Chloe and I binge on carrot sticks and hummus at the furry party for a late dinner, then donate our costumes to the cause. Luckily, we were wearing our clothing underneath the fur.
We decide to camp at a gas station near the highway ramp. It has a steady flow of cars fueling up and I approach driver after driver. Most of them flat out tell me no or are suspicious of my motives. But, finally, I find a driver heading north.
His name’s Tim. His face is wrinkled and as dry as the Vegas air. He and his wife just had a baby and they and their two pit bulls are headed north to visit the grandparents. Better yet, they have a rusted white pickup truck with an open bed that’s just waiting for us to hop into.
“Ain’t much,” says Tim.
“We can’t thank you enough,” I say.
He smiles and his face becomes even craggier. “Jus’ keep down while I’m driving. I’ll try to take ’er easy and not stir up a dust storm in yer faces.”
“Thank you so much,” says Chloe. She takes Tim’s hand and squeezes it. “You have no idea how much this means.”
Tim blushes, then looks back at his wife sitting in the truck. She opens the door and shouts, “The baby’s fed and changed. All set.”
Tim pulls down the tailgate.
I boost Chloe into the truck bed and then hop in after her.
“Y’all ready?” asks Tim.
“Thank you,” I say.
He slams the tailgate and climbs into the cab. Chloe and I sit in the truck bed with our backs resting against the window. Tim starts the truck and pulls out of the gas station onto the highway. It’s a funny feeling looking over Vegas from the bed of a pickup. The moon is rising to our right, climbing into the arid night. As the sky shifts from blue to black the lights of the hotel casinos wink on. They look like stars, closer to the land, but still wished upon just as much as their counterparts. I know better than most how much.
I don’t think the wishes ever come true.
I look over at Chloe. She stares at the city, a deep longing on her face. I wonder if she’s making a wish. We’re only three hours from the last Matt. If I were a betting man, I’d say she’s about to find her soul mate. And I promised I’d get her to him, didn’t I?
Suddenly, I hate to leave Vegas. I hate to leave it and I hate to see it fade in the distance. What a turnaround from earlier today. But these next few hours are probably the last Chloe and I will have together. Ever.
Here we are, speeding down a highway in the back of a truck. The wind is so loud that conversation’s impossible. But what would I say? What could I say? Choose me?
The dust and the sand in the air stings my eyes and I rub them. Chloe turns to me. I wipe at my eyes and quirk a smile.
Thank you, she mouths.
You’re welcome, I say to the wind.
Then I hold out my hand. She looks down then back up and shakes her head no. The wish that I made, to spend the last of our time together holding her hand, vanishes. I let my hand fall. I lean my head against the truck window and stare at the darkening sky. It’s that time, when the darkness is here, but there still aren’t any stars in sight. The darkest, loneliest time of night. Then I lose a breath as Chloe moves closer, and closer still. Until her thigh presses against my thigh, and her arm presses against my arm, and her shoulder to mine. Everywhere she touches sparks and comes alive. I don’t move. I don’t even want to breathe. Because I don’t want to interrupt the feel of her body on mine. And then, she rests her head against my chest. I draw in a harsh breath. I breathe in the dry sand air that smells like thirst mixed with the perfume of her hair and her skin. My hand shakes as I move my arm and slowly wrap it around her shoulders. Then I pull her in to rest against me. It takes an eternity, but finally, she sinks into me and I hold her.
I hold her like this is both the first time and the last time.
Both heaven and hell.
She watches the city disappear and the stars appear. I watch her. The headlights stroking her skin. The wind brushing through her hair. The expressions drifting across her face as we move farther north.
All this trip, I’ve been thinking that soul mates aren’t real, and that they can’t possibly exist. In fact, I set out to prove it. But what if a soul mate is the one person who, when you’re with them, there’s no place you’d rather be? Because right now, it doesn’t matter that I don’t have Shelly, or money, or a phone, or that I’m in the back of a truck. None of that matters, because I’m with her. And I can’t see that ever changing. Fifty years down the road, there still will be no place I’d rather be.
I pull her closer and lean my head down on top of hers. This is it. The last of it. The end. With every mile we drive, I’m one step closer to losing her.
If there’s any wetness in my eyes, no one knows it but me and the wind.
And if there were a thousand miles more to go, not just one hundred, the ending would still be the same. I’d be here, ready to let her go, because I understand now. She needs her soul mate. And like she said…that’s not me.
I close my eyes and whisper into her hair, I love you.
The wind carries my words away.
22
Chloe
* * *
We turned onto Extraterrestrial Highway, speed limit, warp 7, about forty-five minutes a
go. Five minutes ago, we turned onto a wide dirt road. Tim pulls to a stop at the end of a long driveway with a black mailbox. A cloud of dust settles over the truck and then dissipates in the slight breeze. Tim hops out of the truck and comes around to unlatch the tailgate.
Nick and I didn’t talk on the ride here, which I’m glad for. I’m confused and starting to question so many things. And here we are, already at our final stop. It’s hard to admit, but I was half praying for a flat tire so that we wouldn’t make it in time.
Because at the end of this dirt drive is Matt Smith. My soul mate. And then, I’ll have to say goodbye to Nick.
The tailgate clatters and Tim breaks into a big smile.
“Y’all do alright?” he asks. “The missus hollered at me the whole darn way. Slow down, she said, watch that bump, she said.”
“It was great,” I say.
Nick stands and holds out his hand to me. I ignore the little hiccup in my heart. It’s just Nick. The bane of my existence. Well, no. That’s not right anymore. Too much has changed. But still. It’s just Nick. I take his hand and refuse to acknowledge the warmth that curls in my belly at his touch.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re welcome,” he says, and his eyes spark. I never noticed this before, but they’re not absolute black. There are flecks of gold and hazel and deep brown. His eyes have a thousand dimensions to them. They’re an artist’s dream.
I shake my head and hop down into the dirt.
Nick jumps down too, then he stretches his arms over his head. I try not to watch, but I can’t help but feel more aware of him. Those arms were just around me. I was just laying against his chest. I know how hard and warm it is.
He turns to Tim and holds out his hand for a firm handshake. “Thank you again. I can’t express how much I appreciate it.”
Tim laughs, “Nothing to it. Good luck to you and yer missus.”
I shake my head. “He’s not—”
