Damn it if my insides don’t go all warm and trembly. I want to climb out of the Saturn. I want to hurry toward him. I want to hop into the truck and hug him until his hurt goes away—untilmyhurt goes away.
Because this is torture, the wanting and the not having.
My breath comes shallow as, for the first time in all the weeks we’ve been hanging out, I envision my life with Max in it—asmorethan a friend. Traversing high school and family and the future in tandem. Maybe we could be good together, Max and me.
Maybe,just maybe, we could work.
I give him a nod of acknowledgment before wrenching my attention away, terrified by my sudden, unforeseen attitude shift. I leave tire marks as I peel out of the parking lot.
***
He calls an hour later.
I’m driving aimlessly through McAlder, too worked up to go home. I pull onto the shoulder, not far from the tree farm we visited with my dad, and answer with a wary, “Hello?”
“Jilly, hey. You busy?”
“Not really,” I say, guarded after our silent parking lot exchange. I turn on the Saturn’s hazard lights so no one barrels into its rear and say, “What’s up?”
“I, uh, need a favor.” His tempo’s off; he sounds exceptionally lethargic.
“What kind of favor?”
“A ride.”
“What’s wrong with your truck?”
“It’s… undrivable.” He releases the word slowly, with a chuckle and a slur, and I then know exactly why he sounds strange, and why the F-150 is undrivable. He’s been drinking.
“Call your girlfriend, Max,” I say with an agitated sigh.
“I can’t.”
“No? Already tried her?”
“You don’t know anything,” he says, muddy and disjointed.
“No,youdon’t know anything—except for how to be an asshole.”
Through the phone line, I hear liquid slosh against glass, followed by a heavy swallow. He must’ve fought with Becky again. It’s the best explanation for the way she treated me on the quad, and for his unhappiness in the parking lot—not to mention his current state of inebriation.
I can’t believe I was considering the possibility ofusall of an hour ago. Max isn’t fixable. He might never come around. And for whatever reason, he thinks it’s cool to come running to me anytime he needs to be comforted. Or bailed out.
“Call someone else,” I tell him. I’m done with his preferred method of coping.
“Forget it. I’ll drive myself home.”
A wall of anger knocks into me. I’ve been confused by his behavior for ages, and disappointed in him more times than I can count, but this tremendous animosity I’m feeling is new. I want to hurl my phone through the windshield. I want to hurt him as badly as he’s hurting me.
“You aresucha jerk, Max. I hate you—did you know that? Ihateyou.”
“Jesus, Jill—”
“Don’t. There’s nothing you can say that’ll change the way I feel.” It’s the truth, but no matter how completely this latest setback pisses me off, I can’t leave him stranded. I drop my head against the rest behind me. “Where are you?”
A moment of silence passes before he says, “The river.”
I close my eyes, sad beyond description because I know the spot. A long, rarely driven road running parallel to the river, once a favorite bike-riding route for Max and me. I still cruise it from time to time, for nostalgia’s sake.
