Stupid fortune teller.
Who’s too right sometimes. “Fuck Madame Petty. I’m coming home, and then I’ll tell you everything. I’ll call you every other day or so. So you know I’m still alive. Gotta dash, Bea. I love you.”
I hang up before she can stop me, and my nose gets that telltale sign that tears are on the way.
Everything I’m about to teach Oliver, Bea had to teach me.
She’d be so much better at it.
But there’s zero chance I’m convincing Oliver that the best way for him to learn to live like a normal person is to turn around and head back toward New York, even upstate instead of the city.
Not with his plans.
I leave my boss a voicemail and rush through changing the rest of my clothes, and then use the toilet one more time since I have no idea if Oliver will be the type to tell me to hold it.
Oliver several years ago?
He was a pushover who did whatever Margot told him to, or whatever his parents told him to, or whatever my parents told him to.
This Oliver?
I have a feeling?—
“Are you done yet? And where the hell are my car keys?”
Yeah, this Oliver has no qualms marching into the women’s restroom to get me as I’m washing my hands.
This man isnotthe same man my sister was engaged to.
You know that song with the line about how the singer can’t answer the phone since she’s deceased?
That’s what it’s like looking at Oliver.
Outwardly, he has the same hazel eyes and the same shortish haircut and the same normal lips and the same ears that stick out a little too much on the sides, but everything else about him—from the more chiseled jaw to the attitude to the way he talks to me to the way he carries himself—everything else is like he’s a different man.
It’s like he found his spine and now uses it regularly, and it’s making me wonder how else he’s changed.
I shake my hands off, then pull the keys out of the bag where I’ve also hidden my burner phone inside the wadded-up dress from last night and dangle them between my fingers. “My former life of crime is gonna help me make sure you don’t leave without me.”
He growls something softly to himself, snatches the keys, and gives me themove your assglare.
“Are you hungry?” I ask him. “I could go for some fried fish. It’s great road trip food.”
He does that thing where his chest expands as he draws a long breath through his quivering nostrils, then slides another glare at me.
Maybe he’s hangry.
We haven’t had much to eat today. A coffee and a protein bar apiece.
Food’s a good idea.
Averygood idea.
And then I’m convincing him to get off the road.
We stroll out of the store, and a tiny human being yells at us from a table set up in the sunshine beside the exit. “Hey! Hey, mister and miss! I’m selling discount cards to raise money for my gymnastics club so that we can get new equipment and be a lot safer when we fall on our heads! Will you support me not getting brain damage so maybe I can find the cure for cancer one day and also be a gymnast?”
I barely tuck in a laugh.
