“But there can’t ever be anything more than friendship between us,” she says quietly. I barely hear her, but the words still cut like a very sharp knife.
“Whatever you say, Alice,” I tell her. “I’ll always be your friend.”
But I’m lying. Not about the friend part, because I will always be her friend. But I want to be so much more. And nothing will stop me from trying to be. Because nothing can.
“So let’s just get back on the road,” I say and grin at her. “What do you say? Friend?”
She looks at me like she thinks I’m lying… or making jokes where I shouldn’t.
But then she nods, puts her helmet back on and gets on her bike.
“Try to keep up,” she says, revs her bike and takes off.
I have to scramble to catch up to her again. But I don’t mind scrambling. I don’t mind following her. And I don’t mind begging for her attention.
I don’t know what all that means. I just know that for the first time in forever, I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing. And it feels good.
7
Alice
The ride to Gael’s church roughly thirty miles outside of San Diego was supposed to take about two hours. Less if I stepped on the gas. Instead, I find myself slowing down as we near it.
Nico’s SUV has been in my rearview for the entire ride, like a massive black shadow, never dropping back so far that I couldn’t see it. Which is quite a feat, since I weaved through the heavy traffic where he could not.
I still don’t know if it’s a good idea that he’s here with me. I’m still fearful that his presence will make this already very hard task even harder. But I can’t deny that it feels good having someone here with me.
My heart starts racing for no good reason as I near the site of Gael’s church. It’s standing on a lot just outside a smallish town, surrounded by dried-up earth and tiny trees trying to survive in this arid land. Those trees are just like the girls Gael abuses. Just trying to survive. I was like that too. Skinny, fearful, shy, wishing I could just fold in on myself most of the time.
I ride past the church, speeding up until I reach the edges of the town of South Cave. I stop in the parking lot of a mall that’s seen better days and wait for Nico to pull up beside me.
The asphalt of the parking lot is cracked, black tar lines as thick as my wrist the only thing holding it together in many places, stretching across it like rotted veins. Kind of like me. I’m as cracked as this asphalt and the toughness and roughness holding me together is just as black as these lines.
“All right, so what’s our next move?” Nico asks as he joins me. “A nice lunch while we go over the plan?”
I snap my eyes to his, wondering if he’s just another black line in the making.
“I’m not really hungry,” I say. “We should get rooms and then start working.”
Nico looks around the area we’re in, his eyes catching on the motel a little way up the road. The Desert Rose.
“I hope you don’t mean that place,” he says, pointing at it, his face contorted in disgust.
“Yes, I mean that place,” I say. “It’s perfectly located. Near enough to the church, but still far enough so we’re not right on top of it.”
“Come on, I’m sure there’s something better to be found around here,” he says. “That place looks like it’s falling down. And that’s the best thing I can say about it.”
“I know you’re used to the five-star treatment everywhere, but I don’t think you’re gonna find that around here,” I tell him, using Sarge Alice’s voice. “Besides, I did tell you to turn back. You still can.”
His eyes light up with something that I can only describe as heightened interest in me, but his voice is level and kind of hard as he says, “I’m not turning back. Come on, let’s get those rooms. And then we are going to find the best restaurant this town has to offer and go over the plan. I’m starving.”
He strides back to his car without waiting for me to say anything, leaving me just standing there torn between doing as he said and telling him off for daring to order me around. I’m the one giving the orders. It’s been years since that wasn’t the case. So why am I so willing to just do as he says and let him take the reins?
But that’s a question I’ll have to unpack some other time, because he’s already pulling out the parking lot. So I just get on my bike and follow.
The Desert Rose motel is comprised of two three-story buildings facing each other. And as we reach it, I see he had a very good point about maybe finding somewhere else to stay. The windows of the rooms on the second and third stories of the building closest to the road are boarded up and the outdoor hallways leading to them are sagging so badly that it looks like the whole structure is about to come down. But reception is on the ground floor of this building and they wouldn’t have it there if the building was unsafe, would they?
I find Nico standing by his car in front of reception staring dubiously at the sagging hallways. “Are you really sure about this?”
