I should push him away, but I don’t. “I know you. You’re lying.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know anything about me. Even back when we were kids, you only cared about yourself.”
“That’s not true!”
He tugs at his hair and grimaces when he touches the wet locks. He shakes his hand out, flinging the water in my face. “Why are you so bent on ruining my life?”
“Me? You have no idea what you’re talking about—”
“You hit my dog with a freaking car!”
My blood goes cold with the numbing image of Duke in my mind. The way the dog lay limp in Myles’s arms, and the way Myles looked at me, stunned and hurt. My hatred of him now doesn’t lessen the guilt I feel for what I did then.
Myles steps back and shakes his head. “I’m not doing this. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I can’t . . .”
My nose tingles and my eyes sting, but I’ve never cried in front of Myles and I’m not about to start now.
Three years ago we stood in front of my garage while the rain poured down, and I held out the key to my dad’s car. The divorce papers had just been served. I couldn’t accept it, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell Myles about it either because I was afraid I’d cry.
He shook his head, his curls sticking to his forehead. “We’re not doing this.”
“Come on. You have to!” My lip wobbled and my clothes felt too tight, like they were going to suffocate me, but I forced a smile. I needed to be confident to convince him.
“We can’t steal your dad’s car. How could you even ask me to do that? I don’t have a license, and neither do you.”
He was fourteen, and I was thirteen. We didn’t even have our permits yet.
His brow furrowed as he stood in the dim light of the night, his new school uniform clinging to his chest. “We’re going to get hurt.”
“We’ll be fine. I promise.”
He stepped back. He didn’t believe me.
Myles didn’t look the same as he did the first day I met him. He wasn’t the same scared boy in Bermuda shorts. He had grown into his curls. He was in high school, and because I was still in middle school, we hadn’t seen each other as often. He always seemed to be busy.
He had changed. He wasn’t afraid to tell me no anymore. But he didn’t understand. He didn’t know why I desperately needed to do this.
I just wanted to see my mom again and this was the only way. I needed to do something outrageous enough that she'd come back. Maybe I’d be arrested and she’d come to the police station, or maybe I’d get hurt and she’d come to the hospital. Either way, she’d come back. I knew she would.
“I won’t go,” he said, stepping closer.
“Fine. Then I’ll do it myself.”
He reached for the key, but I ran.
He chased after me. “I swear, Emma, if you do this, I won’t save you this time.”
I yanked the car door open and slipped inside, locking it behind me.
He pounded on the window. “Get out of the car, Emma! You’re going to get hurt or hurt someone else!”
I rolled my eyes and laughed. “I’ll be fine!”
I laughed because I wanted to believe my world wasn’t falling apart.
He ran in front of the car, with his hands on the hood, like he could stop it from going forward. “Get out!”
I started the car, but I didn’t know how to drive. I didn’t know how much pressure I needed to put on the gas to make it go forward, and I didn’t know how quickly I needed to step on the brake to get the car to stop.
