It didn’t make sense to me. But looking at him now, the way he stared at me… the way he made me feel so…noticed… it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have to make sense.
He just had to keep being him.
“Troy, look out!” Mikey yelled from the backseat.
The intimate moment Troy and I had been having across the front seat of the car was abruptly ruined when Troy looked forward again and slammed on his brakes. Something fat, rodent-like and mean looking was currently waddling across the gravel road.
The orange station wagon swerved sharply all over the place as Troy did his best to avoid the fugly animal. One of his arms shot out to hold me in place, as if he could protect me with just the strength of that one appendage. Gina and I screamed when the car did a complete three-sixty and then drove off the road into the brambled ditch.
Our bodies jerked forward and then back when we finally came to a complete stop. We were no longer on the road. Or facing the right direction. But everything was put into perfect clarity when the absolute silence was interrupted by a telltale pop and then a loud hiss.
My side of the car dipped down as the popped tired deflated quickly.
“Well, hell,” Gina mumbled.
Troy’s outstretched arm dropped to the seat and he stared blankly out the window. “Is everyone alright?”
We all murmured our fines, but it was the car I was most worried about. We’d been driving for at least fifteen minutes, so it was a long walk back to the diner. And an even longer walk to Graffiti’s. But most importantly, it was a hella long way back to civilization and the chances of someone stumbling upon us in the middle of nowhere were slim to none.
“What was it?” Gina asked. “What nearly killed us?”
“An opossum,” Troy answered. “I should have bulldozed the frickin’ thing.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Troy Albert Cameron, campus bully, defender of wildlife.”
His head snapped to mine, “Keep it up, Carmichael. See what happens.”
I pressed my lips together and made a fake zipping motion.
After another one of his charming smiles, he let out a slow breath and dropped his head on the steering wheel. His fingers reached down and turned the car off. “Well, we better start walking. Otherwise we’re likely to rot out here.”
“Why?” Gina squeaked. “Are there wild animals?”
Both boys laughed at her. “There’s nothing out here,” Mikey said. “That’s the point. Nobody’s going to find us unless we get our asses moving.”
He had a point.
By the time we rolled up our windows and Troy locked the car, the sun had completely disappeared behind the horizon. The stars came out to wink at us and a clear moon lit up the road for us to see.
We walked for what seemed like forever—long enough for Gina to start complaining about her feet in those boots and Mikey to offer to give her a piggyback ride. My feet were fine in my more practical boots, but the temperature had dropped drastically and I couldn’t help but shiver in the cold night. Without a word, Troy shrugged out of his leather jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was still warm from him and smelled like heaven. When I slipped my arms into the sleeves, they dangled way past my hands.
I should have felt small and slight compared to Troy. But the opposite happened. His jacket made me feel safe… secure… protected.
We had finally made it to the main highway when headlights appeared out of nowhere.Rescue!
Troy immediately stuck out his thumb and I did the same. I had taken a lot of buses in my life, but hitchhiking was new to me.
Although I’d always fantasized about hitchhiking around the States. I couldn’t imagine a better summer than seeing as many of the fifty states as possible with nothing to worry about except my thumb and where I was going to lay my head that night.
The truck saw us and slowed down when it got near. I hoped that it would stop and I was very relieved when it finally slowed down.
The driver leaned over and rolled down the window to a super old, light blue truck. “Car trouble?” he asked. He reminded me of one of the dwarves on Snow White. He had a crazy white beard that matched the color of the hair sticking out of his ears. His truck smelled like oil and gas and his denim overalls were covered in grease.
Sneezy—that was who he reminded me of.
“Flat tire,” Troy explained. “Back that way.”
The driver glanced in the direction Troy pointed and gave a grim nod. He didn’t want to go back that way. Damn, he wasn’t going to help.
